Research in Speech Perception and Hearing


Activities

Perhaps unusually for a Department of Phonetics & Linguistics, we have a long history of significant research in speech perception, dating back at least to Dennis Fry's work during WWII. Even more unusual is the degree to which basic properties of the hearing mechanism have been elucidated, started by Adrian Fourcin's work in the 60's. Both these strands are still strong in the department, particularly in the area of speech perception.

A major area of interest involves cochlear implants. We are striving both to understand the speech perceptual abililities of cochlear implant users, and to modify speech processing schemes so as to improve speech understanding (Faulkner, Green, Iverson, Rosen). The RNID is currently funding us to study the perception of speech melody in users of cochlear implants, and to improve its perception. This is likely to be crucial for implanted children developing language through an implant, as speech melody appears to play an important role in language acquisition.

Hazan has been investigating phonetic perception in children and adults with normal hearing, with hearing loss and with reading difficulties. She is also interested in issues relating to speech perception in second language learners. Her current work is investigating how auditory-(visual) training can be used to improve speech perception.

Iverson has been investigating phonetic perception and word recognition among normal hearing individuals, particularly as related to language experience and the perceptual magnet effect.

Rosen, Hazan and Scott have been interested in the possible role of auditory processing deficits in the genesis of various language disorders like dyslexia and Specific Language Impairment.

Scott, a Wellcome Research Career Development Fellow, has brought to the department an exciting new focus of research using functional brain imaging (PET and fMRI) to probe the processes of speech perception. Both Faulkner and Rosen collaborate with her on various aspects of this work.

Basic aspects of human hearing have been studied by Faulkner (pitch perception), Iverson (timbre, auditory scene analysis) and Rosen (frequency analysis, phase perception), who maintain interests in these areas.

Staff

Andrew Faulkner
Adrian Fourcin (Professor Emeritus)
Tim Green
Valerie Hazan
Paul Iverson
Duncan Markham
Stuart Rosen
Sophie Scott

PhD Students

Bronwen Evans
Abbas Haydari
Yu-Ching Kuo
Rosemary O'Halpin
Debi Vickers
Celia Woolf

Publications

Recent published papers in the area (in reverse order):

Rosen, S. & Manganari, E. (2001) Is there a relationship between speech and nonspeech auditory processing in children with dyslexia? J of Speech, Language & Hearing Research 44, 720-736.

Baker, R. J. & Rosen, S. (2001) Evaluation of maximum-likelihood threshold estimation with tone-in-noise masking. British Journal of Audiology 35, 43-52.

Iverson,P. & Kuhl, P. K. (2000).Perceptual magnet and phoneme boundary effects in speech perception: Do they arise from a common mechanism? Perception & Psychophysics, 62, 874-886.

Scott, S. K., Blank, S. C., Rosen, S., & Wise, R. J. S. (2000) Identification of a pathway for intelligible speech in the left temporal lobe. Brain 123, 2400-2406.

Faulkner, A., Rosen, S., & Smith, C. (2000) Effects of the salience of pitch and periodicity information on the intelligibility of four-channel vocoded speech: Implications for cochlear implants. J Acoust Soc Am 108, 1877-1887.

Howell, P., Rosen, S., Hannigan, G. & Rustin, L. (2000) Deficits in auditory temporal resolution in children who stutter and its relation to dysfluency rate. Perceptual and Motor Skills 90, 355-363.

Diesch, E., Iverson, P., Kettermann, A., & Siebert, C. (1999). Measuring the perceptual magnet effect in the perception of German /i/. Psychological Research, 62, 1-19.

Faulkner, A., & Rosen, S. (1999) Contributions of temporal encodings of voicing, voicelessness, fundamental frequency, and amplitude variation to audiovisual and auditory speech perception. J Acoust Soc Am 106, 2063-2073.

Rosen, S., Faulkner, A., & Wilkinson, L. (1999) Adaptation by normal listeners to upward spectral shifts of speech: Implications for cochlear implants. J Acoust Soc Am 106, 3629-3636.

Rosen, S. (1999) Language disorders: A problem with auditory processing? Current Biology 9, R698-R700 (commentary).

Schellenberg, E. G., Iverson, P., & McKinnon, M. C. (1999). Name that tune: Identifying familiar recordings from brief excerpts. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 6, 641-646.

Vance, M., Dry, S., & Rosen, S. (1999) Auditory processing deficits in a teenager with Landau-Kleffner Syndrome. Neurocase 5, 545-554.

Rosen, S., Baker, R. J., & Darling, A. M. (1998) Auditory filter nonlinearity at 2 kHz in normal hearing listeners. J Acoust Soc Am, 103(5): 2539-2550.

Baker, R. J., Rosen, S., & Darling, A. M. (1998) An efficient characterisation of human auditory filtering across level and frequency that is also physiologically reasonable. In A. R. Palmer, A. Rees, A. Q. Summerfield, & R. Meddis (Eds.), Psychophysical and Physiological Advances in Hearing (pp. 81-88). London: Whurr.

Iverson, P., Bernstein, L. E., & Auer, E. T., Jr. (1998). Modeling the interaction of phonemic intelligibility and lexical structure in audiovisual word recognition. Speech Communication, 26, 45-63.

van der Lely, H. K. J., Rosen, S., & McClelland, A. (1998) Evidence for a grammar-specific deficit in children. Current Biology, 8: 1253-1258.

Rosen, S. (1997) Cochlear implants. In: Scott-Brown's Otolaryngology (6th edition): Volume 2: Adult Audiology, D Stephens, ed (Butterworth Heinemann, Oxford) pp 2/15/1-2/15/20.

Iverson, P. & Kuhl, P. K. (1996). Influences of phonetic identification and category goodness on American listeners' perception of /r/ and /l/. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 92, 1130-1140.