The Perceptual Center and Rhythm Categories

The perceptual center (P-center) is a phenomenon which has been used to account for the failure of acoustic-waveform measurements to verify impressionistic claims about language rhythms. To date, the existence of the P-center has only been tested for English. An experiment is described in which the P-center phenomenon is tested in a stress-timed language (English), a syllable-timed language (Spanish) and a mora-timed language (Japanese). The effect is found in all three languages, suggesting that the P-center is a language universal.