Each month, the open access team of the University of Groningen Library (UB) puts a recent open access article by UG authors in the spotlight. This publication is highlighted via social media and the library’s newsletter and website.

The article in the spotlight for the month of February 2022 is titled Speech Prosody: The Musical, Magical Quality of Speech, written by Marita Everhardt (Faculty of Medical Sciences & Faculty of Arts), Anastasios Sarampalis (Behavioural and Social Sciences), Matt Coler (Campus Fryslân), Deniz Başkent (Faculty of Medical Sciences) and Wander Lowie (Faculty of Arts).

Abstract

When we speak, we can vary how we use our voices. Our speech can be high or low (pitch), loud or soft (loudness), and fast or slow (duration). This variation in pitch, loudness, and duration is called speech prosody. It is a bit like making music. Varying our voices when we speak can express sarcasm or emotion and can even change the meaning of what we are saying. So, speech prosody is a crucial part of spoken language. But how do speakers produce prosody? How do listeners hear and understand these variations? Is it possible to hear and interpret prosody in other languages? And what about people whose hearing is not so good? Can they hear and understand prosodic patterns at all? Let’s find out!

We asked first and corresponding author Marita Everhardt a few questions about the article:

Frontiers for Young Minds publishes scientific articles tailored to a young audience. Why did you choose to publish in this journal?

There was a call for papers for the Frontiers for Young Minds collection 'A World of Sound', a collection of articles about sound, aimed at a young audience, to celebrate the International Year of Sound. I had not heard of Frontiers for Young Minds before, but when I read the call I became very curious. I had a closer look at the Frontiers for Young Minds website and read some of the articles and that is when I knew: I want to publish here as well! I discussed it with my supervisors/co-authors and they were also very enthusiastic, so we decided to go for it. Luckily, my PhD research is on a sound-related topic, so it was a perfect fit for the 'A World of Sound' collection. We ended up writing a so-called 'core concept' article on speech prosody.

The peer review was also performed by kids (with the support of a science mentor). What kind of comments did you get during the peer review? 

The peer review process with the kids was really great and made the process of writing and publishing this article so much fun. The kids are given a fixed set of questions which, together with their science mentor, they answer. They are, for example, asked what they found the most interesting part of the article and how enjoyable or engaging they found the article. But also whether the figures helped them understand the article better or whether there were any parts of the article that were confusing or hard to understand. The comments we received were really nice. The kids really liked the topic and learned something new, but they also wanted to see more figures (we originally only had one) and we learned that not every kid has read Harry Potter (yes, really!), so some of our examples needed to be explained a bit more. These types of comments are very different from what you would receive during peer review in a regular journal. The kids are no experts, they cannot comment on whether your explanation is scientifically accurate or whether you are citing the right literature. Instead, they let you know what they did (not) understand or like and what might help to make it a bit easier to understand for their fellow young non-experts. 

What is the value of writing about your research for a young audience?

One of the main reasons I wanted to write an article for this Frontiers for Young Minds collection was because of the young audience. In my PhD research, I investigate how a cochlear implant simulation influences the perception of prosody in a non-native language for young non-native language learners, specifically 12–14 year-old native Dutch learners of English. This age group greatly overlaps with the Frontiers for Young Minds audience, so it was a perfect fit. Writing this article felt like the perfect way to introduce this target audience to the different topics that are combined in my PhD research.

Do you engage in other public engagement/outreach activities involving laypersons?

This article was my first public engagement/outreach activity, but probably will not be the last! I recently also recorded a podcast episode with Nynke Douma, a RUG Honours student who is making a podcast about working in academia. In this podcast (working title "Wie? Wat? Wetenschap!"), Nynke wants to introduce working in science to a layman audience, specifically targeted at kids in their first year of secondary school in the Netherlands. When I was their age, I would have loved to hear more about academia and scientific research, so that is why I especially like these types of activities that are targeted at the younger audience. Hopefully there will be more opportunities like this in the future.

Could you reflect on your experiences with open access and open science in general?

Deciding on where to publish for me includes checking whether it is possible to publish open access and whether the RUG covers the APCs (if there are any). Unfortunately, there are two journals where I would really like to publish for which there are no agreements in place. Since I do not have the funding to cover the publication fees to publish open access, this means that it is just not possible for me to publish in these journals. That really is a shame. Luckily, this Frontiers for Young Minds article did not have any publication fees, so it was published open access free of charge.

Useful links:

Marita Everhardt’s personal website

The episode of the Wie? Wat? Wetenschap! podcast with Marita Everhardt.

Open access journal browser: search engine that can be used to check if a discount on the article processing charge (APC) is available for a specific journal. UG corresponding authors can publish with an APC discount (mostly 100%, so for free) in more than 12.000 journals!

Citation:

Everhardt M, Sarampalis A, Coler M, Başkent D and Lowie W (2022) Speech Prosody: The Musical, Magical Quality of Speech. Front. Young Minds. 10:698575. doi: 10.3389/frym.2021.698575   

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