Social information is cognitively linked to linguistic information, evidenced by bidirectional influences on perceptual processing of speech. Models of sociophonetic cognition theorize that the way linguistic experiences are interpreted and stored in memory is mediated by listener attention, which is guided by ideology. This relationship, however,…

The meanings of natural language utterances depend heavily on context. Yet, what counts as context is often only implicit in conversation. The utterance "it's warm outside" signals that the temperature outside is relatively high, but the temperature could be high relative to a number of different "comparison classes": other…

Psycholinguistic research over the past decade has suggested that children's linguistic knowledge includes dedicated representations for frequently-encountered multiword sequences. Important evidence for this comes from studies of children's production: it has been repeatedly demonstrated that children's rate of speech errors is greater for word…

Fetal hearing experiences shape the linguistic and musical preferences of neonates. From the very first moment after birth, newborns prefer their native language, recognize their mother's voice, and show a greater responsiveness to lullabies presented during pregnancy. Yet, the neural underpinnings of this experience inducing plasticity have…

The power and precision with which humans link language to cognition is unique to our species. By 3-4 months of age, infants have already established this link: simply listening to human language facilitates infants' success in fundamental cognitive processes. Initially, this link to cognition is also engaged by a broader set of acoustic stimuli,…

Multi-modal discourse comprehension requires speakers to combine information from speech and gestures. To date, little research has addressed the cognitive resources that underlie these processes. Here we used a dual-task paradigm to test the relative importance of verbal and visuospatial working memory in speech-gesture comprehension. Healthy,…

Individuals differ in their ability to perceive and learn unfamiliar speech sounds, but we lack a comprehensive theoretical account that predicts individual differences in this skill. Predominant theories largely attribute difficulties of non-native speech perception to the relationships between non-native speech sounds/contrasts and…

Purpose: Background noise and voice problems among teachers can degrade listening conditions in classrooms. The aim of this literature review is to understand how these acoustic degradations affect spoken language processing in 6- to 18-year-old children. Method: In a narrative report and meta-analysis, we systematically review studies that…

Background: Phonological working memory is key to vocabulary acquisition, spoken word recognition, real-time language processing, and reading. Transcranial direct current stimulation, when coupled with behavioral training, has been shown to facilitate speech motor output processes, a key component of nonword repetition, the primary task used to…

Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate children's processing of dysphonic speech in a realistic classroom setting, under the influence of added classroom noise. Method: Typically developing 6-year-old primary school children performed two listening tasks in their regular classrooms--a phoneme discrimination task to assess speech…

We investigated the feasibility of using automatic speech recognition (ASR) and natural language processing (NLP) to classify collaborative problem solving (CPS) skills from recorded speech in noisy environments. We analyzed data from 44 dyads of middle and high school students who used videoconferencing to collaboratively solve physics and math…