Linking spontaneous speech synchronization and cognitive abilities: evidence from a syllable-timed language

Sensorimotor synchronization (SMS) refers to the coordination of audio and motor areas with external rhythmic stimuli, such as music or speech. The Speech-to-Speech Synchronization test (SSST) has been found to be a reliable measure of spontaneous synchronization to speech, and it has shown a bimodal distribution (high and low synchronizers) in stress-time and syllable-timed languages. Nonetheless it is unclear whether this pattern generalizes to other languages such as Hungarian, a syllable-timed language that possesses a fixed-stress pattern. This study aimed to replicate the bimodal distribution of the SSST in native Hungarian speakers and to explore associations between speech sensorimotor synchronization, finger tapping to music, musical background, and working memory. Thirty-one native Hungarian speakers completed the SSST (implicit version), a finger-tapping task, a working memory task (counting span), and a musical background questionnaire. We confirmed the bimodal distribution of SSST in our Hungarian sample. To examine the associations between SSST and other measures in covariate-adjusted analyses, we modeled SSST as a continuous variable to avoid information loss from dichotomization. We found that counting span was the only reliable positive predictor of SSST, whereas indices of tapping performance (consistency and asynchrony) and musical background (playing instrument(s), years of music education) showed no association. Despite limited sensitivity, these results support SSST as a cross-linguistic tendency and suggest that individual differences in spontaneous speech-to-speech synchrony relate more to working-memory capacity than to formal musical training. Future research should include neural correlates and explore how these individual differences manifest across different linguistic abilities.