Awarded $5,000
Lori L. Holt
Carnegie Mellon University
"An Investigation of the Perceptual and Learning Influences on Phonetic Category Formation"
Dr. Holt is an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University and affiliated with Pittsburgh’s Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition. In this study Dr. Holt proposes using human and animal behavioral techniques and computational modeling to understand the role that experience plays in shaping phonetic categorization. Specifically, the experiment examines how discontinuities inherent in the general operating characteristics of the auditory system shape category learning. Her work eschews the assumption that there are innate speech-specific mechanisms; rather, her experimental work with humans and animals demonstrates that the kind of correlations that underlie phonemic categories in speech are generally learned. It is these learned regularities in the combinations of speech components that give rise to language-specific phenomena, such as the tuning of perception to the phonemes of one’s own language. The results of this research can affect understanding of speech perception, infant language development, and perceptual learning; and have implications for artificial speech recognition systems and mechanisms by which clinical impairments affect speech perception.
Awarded $5,000
Amy T. Neal
Purdue University
"The Use of Formant Movement Detail in Vowel Identification"
Amy Neal is Assistant Professor at Purdue University where she is researching the relation between neural encoding of dynamic formants and use of formant contour detail in vowel perception. Dr. Neal hopes to identify how much formant movement pattern detail listeners require to accurately identify vowel sounds and exactly how detailed the formant movement pattern encoded by the auditory system is. This research is part of a series of studies investigating factors related to vowel identification in normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners. Results will contribute to a clearer understanding of the neural processes underlying the use of formant movement information in vowel perception. They can in turn, be applied to digital signal processing for hearing impaired listeners by demonstrating the quantity of dynamic spectral information that must be preserved for maximum speech intelligibility.
Awarded $5,000
Michael S. Vitevitch
Indiana University, Bloomington
"Lexical and Sublexical Processing of Spoken Words in Adult Users of Cochlear Implants"
Michael S. Vitevitch is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Indiana University, Bloomington. He is the recipient of a $4,000 grant supported by the Dennis Klatt Memorial Fund. His research interests include the processes involved in spoken word recognition and speech production and in how these processes change over the lifespan from language acquisition to older age. In addition, he has a curiosity in the influence of short-term and long-term memory on spoken word recognition, lexical access, and language comprehension.
Dr. Vitevitch's research will examine the neural representations and cognitive processes used to recognize spoken words by adults with cochlear implants. The two levels that are involved in the normal processing of spoken words, lexical and sublexical, will be investigated in adult users of cochlear implants with varying word recognition skills. Real words and nonsense words will be presented in a variety of behavioral tasks. It is hypothesized that superior users of cochlear implants process information at both levels of representation, while average users rely only on the lexical level. Results of this study may lead to new interventions and therapies for those cochlear implant users that are less successful and will provide an explanation for the individual differences observed among cochlear implant users. Finally, it will provide further insight to the processes used by normal hearing adults to recognize spoken language.