Philosophy
Try and say “pad kid poured curd pulled cod” 10 times fast.
by
Steve Annear
December 5th, 2013
Boston Daily
The old saying “Sally sold seashells by the seashore” has nothing on a tongue twister created by researchers at MIT. The verbal puzzle, “pad kid poured curd pulled cod,” tripped up test subjects who tried to spit out so much, that psychologists believe it could be the toughest one there is to date.
“If anyone can say this [phrase] ten times quickly, they get a prize,” said Stefanie Shattuck-Hufnagel, a psychologist from MIT who specializes in speech errors as a way of understanding normal brain functions, and one of the creators of the mouth-boggling phrase.
On Thursday Shattuck-Hufnagel is presenting her research about the comparison of two types of tongue twisters, including the difficult phrase, at the Acoustical Society of America in San Francisco. The presentation will be based on research conducted with a team from MIT, where scientists recorded the misspoken sounds for terms like “top cop,” and “toy boat,” to see what errors people produced.
The researchers recorded volunteers saying combinations of alternating words that fell into two categories: simple lists of words, such as the “top cop” example, and full-sentence versions of the same sounds with an inversion, such as “the top cop saw a cop top,” according to a statement about the research. After listening to the recordings, the analysts found that there were patterns in the slip-ups when volunteers tried to annunciate certain strings of similar sounding words. Based on that, they tried to induce different types of double onsets, commonly referred to as double sound mistakes by linguists.
“When things go wrong [when speaking], that can tell you something about how the typical, error-free operation should go,” Shattuck-Hufnagel said.
When they created the combination of words in the phrase “pad kid poured curd pulled cod,” it was so difficult, that participants either couldn’t repeat it, or simply stopped trying altogether.
Because errors occurred for both categories they tested, researchers believe there could be an underlying connection between how the brain takes in the information, and then spits it out of a person’s mouth. “You can get both kinds of errors in both kinds of planning,” she said.
Shattuck-Hufnagel’s presentation will be based on research with MIT scientists, and colleagues from Wellesley University, Haskins Laboratories, and Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich. The discussion will look at findings from a paper titled, “A comparison of speech errors elicited by sentences and alternating repetitive tongue twisters.”
They are already working on the next phase of their research, which includes putting tiny transducers on peoples’ tongues in order to measure their articulation.
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Philosophy
“pad kid poured curd pulled cod” X 10
"MIT Researchers Say They Have Created The Trickiest Tongue Twister To Date"
Try and say “pad kid poured curd pulled cod” 10 times fast.
by
Steve Annear
December 5th, 2013
Boston Daily
The old saying “Sally sold seashells by the seashore” has nothing on a tongue twister created by researchers at MIT. The verbal puzzle, “pad kid poured curd pulled cod,” tripped up test subjects who tried to spit out so much, that psychologists believe it could be the toughest one there is to date.
“If anyone can say this [phrase] ten times quickly, they get a prize,” said Stefanie Shattuck-Hufnagel, a psychologist from MIT who specializes in speech errors as a way of understanding normal brain functions, and one of the creators of the mouth-boggling phrase.
On Thursday Shattuck-Hufnagel is presenting her research about the comparison of two types of tongue twisters, including the difficult phrase, at the Acoustical Society of America in San Francisco. The presentation will be based on research conducted with a team from MIT, where scientists recorded the misspoken sounds for terms like “top cop,” and “toy boat,” to see what errors people produced.
The researchers recorded volunteers saying combinations of alternating words that fell into two categories: simple lists of words, such as the “top cop” example, and full-sentence versions of the same sounds with an inversion, such as “the top cop saw a cop top,” according to a statement about the research. After listening to the recordings, the analysts found that there were patterns in the slip-ups when volunteers tried to annunciate certain strings of similar sounding words. Based on that, they tried to induce different types of double onsets, commonly referred to as double sound mistakes by linguists.
“When things go wrong [when speaking], that can tell you something about how the typical, error-free operation should go,” Shattuck-Hufnagel said.
When they created the combination of words in the phrase “pad kid poured curd pulled cod,” it was so difficult, that participants either couldn’t repeat it, or simply stopped trying altogether.
Because errors occurred for both categories they tested, researchers believe there could be an underlying connection between how the brain takes in the information, and then spits it out of a person’s mouth. “You can get both kinds of errors in both kinds of planning,” she said.
Shattuck-Hufnagel’s presentation will be based on research with MIT scientists, and colleagues from Wellesley University, Haskins Laboratories, and Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich. The discussion will look at findings from a paper titled, “A comparison of speech errors elicited by sentences and alternating repetitive tongue twisters.”
They are already working on the next phase of their research, which includes putting tiny transducers on peoples’ tongues in order to measure their articulation.
Puzzles and the like
- Tripe My Guacamole, Baby Or Hooked On Phonics
Yes, I was listening to Little Feat on the way home last night and the phrase "tripe my guacamole" stuck in my head. As "tripe" is a noun, the sentence is not syntactically a well formed sentence, forget the fact that the combination of words is not meaningful....
- An English Language Curiosity
"Why Do People Use Nope Even Though No Is Shorter?" by Quora Contributor March 8th, 2013 Slate This is an example of sound change, and there are a few hypotheses we can consider as to why this sound change came about. The first hypothesis is that this...
- Ancient Languages...reconstructed By Computer Software
"Ancient languages reconstructed by computer program" by Rebecca Morelle February 12th, 2013 BBC World Service A new tool has been developed that can reconstruct long-dead languages. Researchers have created software that can rebuild protolanguages...
- Knowledge Downloading Via A Machine?
Okay, a great way to gather data...those facts and figures most of us have forgotten. But, you cannot replace real experience. And, most importantly, how does wisdom fit into this idea? "Download Knowledge Directly to Your Brain, Matrix-Style" by Rebecca...
- Neil Armstrong's "one Small Step..."...analysis
"One Small step..." Is this really that important? "Armstrong's 'poetic' slip on Moon" by Pallab Ghosh June 3rd, 2009 BBC News Neil Armstrong missed out an "a" and did not say "one small step for a man" when he set foot on the Moon in...