Home > Events > Lori Holt (Carnegie Mellon): Using speech to listen in on auditory learning
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Lori Holt (Carnegie Mellon): Using speech to listen in on auditory learning

Time: 
Wednesday, September 28, 2016 - 2:00 PM to 3:30 PM
Location: 
0125 Taliaferro (Language Science Center)

Experience deeply shapes how we perceive spoken language. For example, we learn long-term phonetic representations that respect the sound structure of our native language and, yet, we maintain enough flexibility to make sense of speakers with nonnative accents or speech from imperfect computer synthesizers. There are rich behavioral-science literatures that speak to the many ways that experience shapes speech perception. Yet, we understand quite little about the learning mechanisms involved in supporting speech communication. For the most part, contemporary neurobiological models of language are oriented toward characterization of the system in a stable state.

I will describe ongoing research that aims to better characterize the more dynamic aspects of speech communication. These approaches converge to suggest that progress in understanding speech processing can be made by understanding the principles of human neurobiological learning systems, in general. Long relegated as a special system that could tell us little about general human cognition, I will argue that the study of speech communication as a flexible, adaptive, experience‐dependent skill that draws upon perceptual, cognitive, motor and linguistic systems has much to offer as a platform for understanding human behavior, quite generally. Reciprocally, knowledge from the broader field of auditory cognitive neuroscience can deeply inform our understanding of phonetic perception.
 

About the speaker:

Lori Holt is a Professor of Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The major focus of her research has been understanding the general sensory, perceptual, cognitive and learning mechanisms that support speech communication.