The Cadence of Quarantine: Has the Pandemic Altered Our Speech?
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: I drew from a data set of recorded phone interviews with 199 respondents conducted early during the COVID-19 pandemic, and again between 2024-25. Using PRAAT, an open-source speech analysis software, I analyzed hundreds of excerpts of speech from this data set and quantified their syllable nuclei counts as a means of measuring rates of speech for further comparative analysis to be performed. The goal was to aggregate data to determine as to whether these respondents' rates of speech have significantly slowed down (or not), and to further determine by way of advanced statistical modeling as to what degree their rates of speech may have been altered and what confounding factors may be contributing their alterations. The overall picture was to see if the pandemic and the COVID-19 infections/quarantine conditions it brought with it had a direct relation in impacting their rates of speech. If so, then future research may be taken as to determine whether or not any significant findings could be generalized to the overall US (or global) population.
DOI: 10.17615/sv0b-c902
Author: Gaines, Robert
Institution: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Language: English
Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7080667381
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