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Course description:
Speech communication takes place under extreme conditions: for example, in the presence of
environmental distortions such as noise and reverberation, when parts of the message are
obliterated or masked by competing sounds, when the identity of the speaker is unknown or the
dialect of the talker is unfamiliar, and when the auditory input is impoverished or distorted
because of hearing loss. This course considers how human listeners achieve this by looking at
auditory, perceptual, cognitive and neural processes that intervene between the production of
speech and its recognition. Topics include: acoustic correlates of phonetic categories; auditory
processing of speech in background noise and the "cocktail party" problem; the problem of
lexical access; the development of speech perception in infancy; auditory analysis and neural
coding of speech; audio-visual speech perception; environmental constraints on speech
perception, and the effects of hearing loss.
Readings: The primary readings are journal articles and/or book chapters. Most will be
available online and will be assigned 1-2 weeks before they are covered in class. Assigned
readings must be completed prior to the class in which they are discussed.
Recommended texts:
Kent, R.D. & Read, C. (2001). The Acoustic Analysis of Speech. (Singular).
Stevens, K.N. (1999). Acoustic Phonetics (Current Studies in Linguistics). M.I.T. Press.
Course requirements:
Class presentations (20%).
Written report on class presentations (20%).
Midterm exam (30%)
Final takehome exam (30%)
Class presentation and report: Select two papers from the speech/hearing literature (must be
approved). Your job is to present a brief summary of the paper to the class (15 minutes) and
initiate/lead discussion of the paper.
Learning objectives
After completing the course, students should be able to:
(1) Demonstrate an understanding of basic speech acoustics and the perceptual and neural
mechanisms involved in the recognition of different classes of speech sounds;
(2) Demonstrate an understanding of how the acoustic structure of speech interacts with
auditory processing to create special problems for speech communication in hearing
impaired listeners;
(3) Apply this knowledge to analyze specific problems arising in the current literature on
speech perception.
Dates Topics
Jan 15 Acoustics of speech
Jan 22 Vowel production and perception BBS Colloquium
Jan 29 Consonant production and perception
Feb 5 Suprasegmentals and prosody, lexical access RB
Feb 12 Environmental factors in speech perception MH
Feb 19 Effects of hearing loss on speech communication EC SS
Feb 26 Audiovisual speech perception MJ KK
Mar 5 Auditory feedback and speech production JK
Mar 12 Due date for midterm take-home exam
Mar 19 NO CLASS – SPRING BREAK
Mar 26 Binaural speech perception
Apr 2 Development of speech perception BBS Colloquium
Apr 9 Second language learning and speech perception BBS Colloquium
Apr 16 Auditory models and neural coding of speech
Apr 23 Acoustical Society of America meeting – no class
Apr 30 Auditory models and neural coding of speech
May 7 Due date for final take-home exam