Subject Speech Rates as a Function of Interviewer Behaviour

Distinctions have been made between two speech rate measures. Previously these measures have been studied only in naturalistic settings. Also, methodological problems in prior studies generated questionable conclusions. The present study replicated and extended earlier studies. Subjects were interviewed in a Standardized Interview and a Non-Standardized Interview. For both interview situations the following areas were examined for the two speech rate measures: (a) frequency distributions, (b) relative variability, (c) interrelations of the two rate measures, (d) relations of subject's rates to experimenter's rates, (e) relations of the two rates to the lengths of speech units. Interviewer speech rates in the two interview situations were found to influence the subject's speech rates. Marked differences in the variability of the two rate measures were shown. And each rate measure was related to the syllable length of its relevant speech unit. Some implications of the present results for further research are discussed.