Current Research

Speech Styles and Listening Conditions in High-Variability Phonetic Training: Novel Consonant and Vowel Perception and Production by Naïve Mandarin-English Bilingual Learners (Zeyu Feng)

What types of speech input and listening conditions enhance perceptual learning? The study investigates how speech styles (clear vs. casual) and listening conditions (quiet vs. noise) during high-variability phonetic training influence the perception and production of Russian voicing and vowel contrasts by Mandarin-English bilinguals without Russian experience. It examines learning in the trained speech style and listening condition, as well as generalization to the untrained speech style and listening condition.

Co-intrinsic onset F0 adaptation in Mandarin-English bilinguals (Ning Zheng)

This project investigates whether Mandarin-English bilingual speakers adapt their onset F0 toward a model talker during speech shadowing when the primary cue, voice onset time (VOT), is made less salient. The study examines whether onset F0 adaptation differs between English and Mandarin language modes and whether convergence observed during shadowing remains in post-shadowing production. Using a speech-shadowing paradigm, participants complete reading and shadowing tasks with unmodified and manipulated speech in both languages. This project aims to improve our understanding of phonetic convergence and cross-linguistic influence in bilingual speech production.

Phonetic drift in Mandarin and English vowels during L1/L2 Re-Immersion (Yiying Jiang)

This project investigates how established L1 Mandarin L2 English bilingual vowel categories change across seven time points which spanned three phases of L2 immersion, L1 re-immersion, and L2 re-immersion. Preliminary data showed evidence of phonetic drift in both L1 and L2 vowels across phases as well as within phases. While distinct drift patterns emerged for high and low vowel subgroups, vowels within the same subgroup moved in tandem. These findings suggest that bilingual vowels dynamically recalibrate while preserving phonemic categories under the influence of changing linguistic input.

Illusory Phonemes: Robustness and Cueing of L2 Phoneme Restoration Effect (Joan Downey)

This project investigates the ability and cueing strategies of L2 Spanish listeners to perceptually restore masked or degraded phonemes in comparison with L1 listeners. L1 listeners generally show very robust PR and furthermore rely most heavily on top-down semantic and lexical cues. The goal of this project is to first determine how robustly L2 Spanish listeners restore masked phonemes, and if L2 Spanish listeners do restore masked phonemes, to then determine whether L2 listeners rely more heavily on top-down semantic and lexical cues or bottom-up acoustic cues.