Research
My research is primarily concerned with the basic mechanisms of speech production and perception in connected discourse, especially in terms of how multiple layers of communicative meanings can be encoded through a common process of articulation. In particular, I am interested in the production, perception, typology, and modelling and synthesis of speech prosody, as well as the basic mechanisms of coarticulation. I am also concerned with computational modeling of the neural process of speech acquisition. More recently, I have developed an interest in the understanding of emotional expressions in speech from an evolutionary perspective. For more information, please see my Research page.
New:
Xu, Y. and Prom-on, S. (in press). Toward invariant functional representations of variable surface fundamental frequency contours: Synthesizing speech melody via model-based stochastic learning. Speech Communication. Request author version
Cheng, C. and Xu, Y. (in press). Articulatory limit and extreme segmental reduction in Taiwan Mandarin. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. Request author version
Prom-on, S. and Xu, Y. (in press). Discovering underlying tonal representations by computational modeling: a case study of Thai. Journal of Chinese Linguistics. Request author version
Liu, F., Xu, Y., Prom-on, S. and Yu, A. C. L. (2013). Morpheme-like prosodic functions: Evidence from acoustic analysis and computational modeling. Journal of Speech Sciences 3: 85-140.
Xu, Y., Lee, A., Wu, W.-L., Liu, X. and Birkholz, P. (2013). Human vocal attractiveness as signaled by body size projection PLoS ONE 8(4): e62397.
Continued: Call for international collaborations: Cross-linguistic distribution of Post-Focus Compression (PFC) and its hisotircal origin.
Publications
New:
- Xu, Y., Kelly, A. and Smillie, C. (2013). Emotional expressions as communicative signals. In S. Hancil and D. Hirst (eds.) Prosody and Iconicity, John Benjamins Publishing Co, pp. 33-60.
- Liu, F., Jiang, C., Pfordresher, P. Q., Mantell, J. T., Xu, Y., Yang, Y. and Stewart, L. (2013). Individuals with congenital amusia imitate pitches more accurately in singing than in speaking: Implications for music and language processing. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, DOI:10.3758/s13414-013-0506-1.
- Wang, B., Qadir, T. and Xu, Y. (2013). 维吾尔语焦点的韵律实现及感知 [Prosodic encoding and perception of focus in Uygur]. Acta Acoutica Sinica 38: 92-98.
- Lin, C. Y., Wang, M., Idsardi, W. J. and Xu, Y. (2013). Stress processing in Mandarin and Korean second language learners of English. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition.
Research tools
yi.xu@ucl.ac.uk
Chandler House, 2 Wakefield Street, University College London, London WC1N IPF, UK
