Office Hours: The Professor Is In

Stuttering and temperature

From: Peter Louw
Date: 15 Oct 2012
Time: 07:36:02 -0500
Remote Name: 196.23.50.162

Comments

Dear panel, I wondered if any research is available on the relationship between stuttering and temperature? For instance, do some people tend to stutter more when the weather is cold? In a poll on my blog recently, 9 people said that their speech was worse in cold conditions, whereas 3 said that their speech was better when it's cold. 12 said that temperature didn't make any difference, and 15 said that they hadn't noticed any difference. Personally I find that my speech is markedly better when the temperature is nice and warm, but markedly worse in cold temperatures. I would ascribe this to muscle tension and stress - when it's cold, some people maybe tend to tense their muscles to ward off the cold, whereas when the weather is nice, people tend to be more relaxed. I thought this was rather interesting, but has this been researched before?

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Last changed: 10/22/12