Nov. 30, 2006 -- Do the sounds of our native languages affect
how we hear music and other non-language sounds" A team of
American and Japanese researchers has found evidence that native
languages influence the way people group non-language sounds
into rhythms. People in different cultures perceive different
rhythms in identical sequences of sound, according to Drs. John
R. Iversen and Aniruddh D. Patel of The Neuroscience Institute
in San Diego and Dr. Kengo Ohgushi of the Kyoto City University
of Arts in Kyoto, Japan. This provides evidence that exposure to
certain patterns of speech can influence one's perceptions of
musical rhythms. In future work, they believe they may even be
able to predict how people will hear rhythms based on the
structures of their own languages. The researchers will present
their findings Nov. 30 at the Fourth Joint Meeting of the
Acoustical Society of America (ASA) and the Acoustical Society
of Japan (ASJ), which will be held at the Sheraton Waikiki and
Royal Hawaiian Hotels in Hon