BCSC 261: Lecture Schedule
Only students who are enrolled in the course may access the course readings online. You must be logged into Blackboard to download these materials.
- 8/31 Course overview
- This is an advanced seminar. The overall focus for this semester is spoken language understanding, its interface with social cognition, and adaptive behavior in response to unfamiliar speech input. This means that we will skip many ‘classic’ topics covered in classes on speech perception and spoken language understanding (though you will indirectly learn about these topics through the topics we will cover).
- However, students are very much encouraged to make reading and topic suggestions. The list of topics provided below is best understood as a default that we can adjust to meet your interests. The readings under each topic are meant to help discussion leaders to decide which topic they are interested in presented, and will get you started on preparing the discussion. Discussion leaders are expected to read 4-6 papers as background for the class. But only 1-2 articles/class (at most 20-30 pages of main text) should be assigned reading for everyone else. Suggestions for alternative topics may include some topics that tangentially relate to this semester’s focus. For example, we could also cover some topics in language production, in how speech perception or production relate to diagnosis of medical conditions, language research in the media, or alike.
- Students are also welcome to suggest substitutions for readings listed below (or additions to them)—e.g., because an alternative reading might increase the diversity of the perspectives and author backgrounds reflected in the reading list, or simply because another reading struck them as thought-provoking and interesting. Reading and topic suggestions can be made over Slack or via the anonymous feedback form.
- 9/7 Speech: How much is in the signal (and how much do we ‘hallucinate’)?
- Reading: Winn (2018)
- 9/12 Context and goals affect language processing
- Example readings: Tanenhaus, Spivey-Knowlton, Eberhard, & Sedivy, 1995; Hanna, Tanenhaus, & Trueswell, 2003; Altman & Kamide, 1999
- Reviewed in: Tanenhaus & Brown-Schmidt, 2008
- 9/14 Theory: Why and how expectations affect language understanding
- Example readings: Luce & Pisoni, 1998; Norris & McQueen, 2008; Levy, 2008, 2011; Clayards, Tanenhaus, Aslin, & Jacobs, 2008; Tanenhaus & Brown-Schmidt, 2008
- Reviewed in: Kuperberg & Jaeger, 2016; Rohde & Kurumada, 2018
- 9/19 Individual differences in experience affect language understanding
- Example readings: Broderick, Liberto, Anderson, Rofes & Lalor, 2021; Smith & Benetto, 2007; James, Fraundorf, Lee, & Watson, 2018
- XX/XX Lack of invariance as the fundamental problem in speech perception
- Reading: Liberman, Shankweiler, & Studdert-Kennedy, 1967; TBA
- Reviewed in: Weatherholtz & Jaeger, 2016
- XX/XX Relating distributions in the speech input to speech recognition
- Reading: Lisker & Abramson, 1970; Nearey & Hogan, 1986
- Reviewed in: Schertz & Clare, 2019
- XX/XX Low-level auditory normalization as correction for physiological differences (and later: beyond physiology towards expectations)
- Reading: Adank, Smits, & van Hout, 2004; Escudero & Bion, 2007; McMurray & Jongman, 2011
- Reviewed in: Stilp, 2020
- Critiqued in: Johnson, 2006
- XX/XX The neurobiology of normalization
- Reading: Guediche, Holt, Laurent, Lim, & Fiez, 2015; Skoe, Krizman, Spitzer, & Kraus, 2021
- Reviewed in: Guediche, Blumstein, Fiez, & Holt, 2014
- XX/XX How have theoretical perspectives on the construal of social identity changed?
- Example readings: Eckert, 2013
- XX/XX How do attention and social attitudes affect speech production & understanding?
- Example readings: Babel, Senior, & Bishop, 2019; Piazza, Cohen, Trach, Lew-Williams, 2021; Weatherholtz, Campbell-Kibler, & Jaeger, 2014
- XX/XX Expectations in speech perception based on inferred language background
- Example readings: Niedzielski, 1999; Hanulíková, Alphen, van Goch, & Weber, 2012
- XX/XX How specific are those expectations? How does this change with experience?
- Example readings: Hanulíková & Weber, 2012; Eisner, Melinger, & Weber, 2013; Porretta, 20XX
- XX/XX Expectations in speech perception based on inferred gender, age, and race
- Example readings: Strand & Johnson, 1999; Staum Cassasanto, 2009; McGowan, 2015; Hanulíková & Carreiras, 2015; Babel, 2021; Hanulíková, 2021
- XX/XX Beyond expectations: Do over-attribution & over-generalization (stereotypes) affect speech perception?
- Example readings: Hay & Drager, 2010; Babel, 2021; Munson, 2011
- XX/XX Beyond expectations: Reverse stereotyping
- Example readings: Babel & Russel, 2015; Zheng & Samuel, 2017; Kutlu, Tiv, Wulff, & Titone, 2020
- Reviewed in: TBA
- XX/XX Expectations about the co-occurrence of inferred language background and lexical usage
- Example readings: Staum Cassasanto, 2009; Walker & Hay, 2011; Hay, Walker, Sanchez, & Thompson, 2017
- XX/XX Forming social associations
- Example readings: Docherty, Langstrof, & Foulkes, 2013; Kleinschmidt, Weatherholtz, & Jaeger, 2018
- Reviewed in: Foulkes & Hay, 2015
- XX/XX Theory: How inferred talker identity comes to affect language understanding
- Example readings: Nearey, 1997; Johnson, 1997; Sumner, Kim, King, & McGowan, 2014
- XX/XX Bias in ASR: When ASR performance differs by race, age, gender, and other aspects of language background.
- Example readings: TBA
- XX/XX Adapting ASR models to unfamiliar types of speech
- Example readings: TBA
- XX/XX Exposure to second language (L2)-accented speech
- Example readings: Clarke & Garreth, 2004; Hanulíková, Alphen, van Goch, & Weber, 2012; Reinisch & Holt, 2014; Sohuglu & Davis, 2016; Xie, Theodore, & Myers, 2016
- Review in: Bent & Baese-Berk, 2021
- XX/XX Generalization across talkers and accents
- Example readings: Baese-Berk, Bradlow, & Wright, 2013; Tzeng, Sidaras, & Nygaard, 2016; Xie & Myers, 2017
- Recommended review: Xie, Liu, & Jaeger, 2021
- XX/XX Changes in representations or decision-making? Evidence from neuro-imaging
- Example readings: Bonte, Correira, Keetels, Vroomen, & Formisano, 2017; Erb, Henry, Eisner, & Obleser, 2013; Luthra, Correira, Kleinschmidt, Mesite, & Myers, 2020; Myers & Mesite, 2014
- XX/XX Theory: Behavioral and neural models of adaptation
- Example readings: Kleinschmidt & Jaeger, 2015; Sohuglu & Davis, 2020; Xie, Buxó-Lugo, & Kurumada, 2021
- XX/XX Changes in adaptive speech perception across listeners’ age
- Example readings: Adank & Janse, 2010
- Recommended review: TBA
- XX/XX Exposure to talker-specific lexical and syntactic usage
- Example readings: Creel et al., 2008; Fine, Qian, Farmer, & Jaeger, 2013; Pogue, Kurumada, & Tanenhaus, 2016; Ryskin, Qi, Duff, & Brown-Schmidt, 2017; Degen & Schuster, 2020
- Reviewed in: Brown-Schmidt & Yoon, 2015
- XX/XX Causal attribution of unexpected pronunciations: Do you sound like this or is it the pen in your mouth?
- Example readings: Arnold, Kam, & Tanenhaus, 2007; Kraljic, Samuel, & Brennan, 2008; van Linden & Vroomen, 2007; Liu & Jaeger, 2018
- Reviewed in: TBA
- XX/XX Sensorimotor integration and correction of (perceived) misproductions
- Example readings: Buz, Tanenhaus, & Jaeger, 2016
- Reviewed in: Hickok, Houde, & Rong, 2011
- XX/XX Interlocutor- and location-specific adaptation of speech production (audience design)
- Example readings: Dell & Brown, 1991; Lockridge & Brennan, 1998; Metzing & Brennan, 2013; Hay, Podlubny, Drager, & McAuliffe, 2017; Piazza, Iordan, & Lew-Williams, 2017; Yoon & Brown-Schmidt, 2019
- Reviewed in: Ferreira, 2019; Clark, 2020
- XX/XX Exposure to more linguistic diversity results in...
- Example readings: Tiv, Rouillard, Vingron, Wiebe, & Titone, 2019;