Why does a spoken word, when repeated over and over, begin to sound musical? Let a linguist explain.
sometimes behave so strangely
As it turns out, the illusion does not stem from Deutsch’s voice being especially musical. This illusion happens with all sorts of spoken stimuli that are played at regular intervals. The effect is most intense when the repeated stimulus is in a language that is very different phonologically from the listener’s native language. For example, in one 2015 study,Why is repetition so important here? There are measurable differences in how verbal stimuli sound when played once versus on repeat.
To put this practice into context, I spoke to two experts: Langston Wilkins, expert in hip-hop and assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and Dan Charnas, historian of hip-hop and associate arts professor at New York University. Both confirmed that the use of repetition to add musicality to spoken vocal samples is a common practice in hip-hop, but neither was familiar with Deutsch’s framing of the phenomenon as an auditory illusion.
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