Research
My research seeks to understand the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying human speech processing. Specifically, I am interested in 1) if and how resilient speech learning can be in the context of native and nonnative communication (e.g., talker change, native and foreign accented speech); 2) the neural mechanisms that support such plasticity in rapid and long-term learning; 3) if and how being bilingual and/or multilingual may influence the learning process
Current research projects:
Rapid Speech Adaptation Under Adverse Listening Conditions
Although age-related hearing loss and decline in auditory sensitivity is well-known, effects of aging on the ability to cope with varying sources of speech variability remain largely elusive. The current project investigates how younger and older adults (YAs vs. OAs) may navigate distinct types of adverse listening conditions: Mandarin-accented speech and speech-in-noise.
Please see the submitted abstract version here.
Talker variability in English fricative production: In Cases of /f/ and /s/
Fricatives are in general less studied compared to stop consonants, for instance. Identification studies also suggest that fricative perception tends to be affected by talker gender. This explanatory study investigates the amount of talker variability induced by gender and native language by looking at English fricative production /f/ and /s/. We ask: A) if nonnative accented vs. native talkers plus male vs. female talkers exhibit larger variability in fricative production; B) if there is any interaction between fricative category, gender, and native language. We use mixed effects modeling for statistical analyses. Results should benefit the design of future speech perception studies involving English fricatives.
Presentations:
(* indicates presenting author)
*Gu, Y., Xie X., & Kurumada, C. Rapid speech adaptation under adverse listening conditions. Presented at the 5th California Meetings on Psycholinguistics. UCLA. 2022.
*Gu, Y., Song Y., Kroll, J., & Scontras, G. Lexical entrainment in Mandarin-English bilinguals. Presented at the 7th Annual Florida Psycholinguistics Meeting. 2021.
*Gu, Y., Xie, X., & Kurumada, C. Rapid speech adaptation under adverse listening conditions. Presenting at the 64th Psychonomic Society's Annual Meeting. 2023.
*Gu, Y., Xie, X., & Kurumada, C. Does speech adaptation generalize across adverse listening conditions? Presenting at the 15th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language. 2023.