Speech Learning Lab

Department of Linguistics & School of Communication Sciences and Disorders

McGill University

Research

In the Speech Learning lab we investigate phonetic variability - how pronunciations change from instance to instance - and how this shapes speech perception. We’re also interested in how listeners and learners adapt to the phonetic patterns of their linguistic environment and what happens when those patterns change. We have a special interest in how individuals differ in both patterns of production and perception abilities.

Learn more about our research

Lab Members

Dr. Meghan Clayards
Associate Professor
Linguistics   SCSD
Alvaro Iturralde Zurita
PhD student
Marcelo Vieira
PhD student
Claire Honda
MSc student

Recent Graduates

Bing'er Jiang
PhD student
 
Hye-Young Bang
PhD
 
Sarah Colby
PhD
 
Donghyun Kim
PhD
Jiaer Tao
MA

View Collaborators and Alumni

Publications

Papers

  • Clayards, M., Gaskell, G., & Hawkins, S. (2021). Phonetic detail is used to predict a word’s morphological composition. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wocn.2021.101055 [OSF files] [pre print]
  • Jiang, B., Clayards, M., & Sonderegger, M. (2020). Individual and dialect differences in perceiving multiple cues: A tonal register contrast in two Chinese Wu dialects. Laboratory Phonology: Journal of the Association for Laboratory Phonology, 11(1), 11. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/labphon.266
  • Kim, D., Clayards, M., & Kong, E. J. (2020). Individual differences in perceptual adaptation to unfamiliar phonetic categories. Journal of Phonetics, 81, 16p DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wocn.2020.100984.[pre print]
  • Kilbourn-Ceron, O., Clayards, M., Wagner, M. (2020) Predictability modulates pronunciation variants through speech planning effects: A case study on coronal stop realizations. Laboratory Phonology: Journal of the Association for Laboratory Phonology 11(1): 5, pp. 1–28. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/labphon.168
  • Dong, H., Clayards, M., Brown, H., Wonnacott, E. (2019) The effects of high versus low talker variability and individual aptitude on phonetic training of Mandarin lexical tones. PeerJ, 7, e7191. DOI: 10.7717/peerj.7191 OSF files
  • Colby, S., Shiller, D., Clayards, M., Baum, S. (2019). Different Responses to Altered Auditory Feedback in Younger and Older Adults Reflect Differences in Lexical Bias. Special issue of the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 62 (4S), 1144-1151. doi:10.1044/2018_JSLHR-H-ASCC7-18-0124 [pre print]
  • Kim, D., Clayards, M. (2019) Individual differences in the link between perception and production and the mechanisms of phonetic imitation. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 34:6, 769-786. doi:10.1080/23273798.2019.1582787 [pre print]

Proceedings

  • Tao, J., Torreira, F., Clayards, M. (2018) Durational cues to word boundaries in spontaneous speech. Proceedings of the 9th Speech Prosody Conference in Posnan, Poland [download]
  • Clayards, M., Knowles, T. (2015) Prominence enhances voiceless-ness and not place distinction in English voiceless sibilants. Proceedings of the International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Glasgow, UK. [Online]

Presentations

  • Clayards, M., Suh, C., Otto, R., (2020) Inhibition Mediates Individual Differences in Top-Down Lexical Processing. Poster presented at 17th conference on Laboratory Phonology, Vancouver, Canada [Poster]
  • Suh, C., Clayards, M., Otto, R., (2019) Inhibition Mediates Individual Differences in Top-Down Lexical Processing. Poster presented at the Young Female Researchers in Speech Workshop, Graz Austria [Poster]
  • Jiang, B., Clayards, M., Ravanelli, M. & O’Donnell, T.J. (2019) A neural network approach to investigate tone space in Mandarin Chinese”. Poster presentation at the 177th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Louisville, Kentucky, May, 2019.[Poster]
  • Kim, D. & Clayards, M. (2019). Individual differences in plasticity in speech perception under cognitive load. Presented at the 5th International Conference on Cognitive Hearing Science for Communication. June 11. Linköping, Sweden. [Poster]
  • Kim, D., Clayards, M., & Kong, E. J. (2019). Individual differences in perceptual adaptation to unfamiliar speech sound categories. Presented at the 5th International Conference on Cognitive Hearing Science for Communication. June 10. Linköping, Sweden. [Poster]
  • Tao, J., Torreira, F., Clayards, M. (2018, November) Perception of word boundaries in spontaneous speech in English. Poster presentation at the Acoustical Society of America, Victoria, Canada. [Poster]
  • Jiang, B., Clayards, M., Sonderegger, M. (2018, June) Perception and Individual variability of a Tonal Register Contrast in Chinese Wu dialects. Poster presentation at LabPhon16, Lisbon, Portugal. [Poster]
  • Colby, S., Poulton, V., Clayards, M. (2017, December) Inhibitory and lexical frequency effects in younger and older adults’ spoken word recognition. Poster presentation at the Acoustical Society of America, New Orleans, LA. [Poster]
  • Bang, HY, Sonderegger, M., Clayards, M. (2017, April) Speaker variability in cue weighting for laryngeal contrasts: the relationship to sound change. Poster presented at the 4th Workshop on Sound Change, Edinborough, UK.[Poster]

View more publications

Contact

Meghan Clayards

Email: meghan.clayards [at] mcgill.ca

Department of Linguistics

1085 Ave Dr. Penfield, Montréal, Quebec

School of Communication Sciences and Disorders

2001 McGill College, 8th floor, Montréal, Quebec

Funded by

         


Resources

Michael McAuliffe's STRAIGHT tutorial for stimulus synthesis          


Speech Learning Lab © 2015
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