f0 Perturbation and Mandarin Tone Production
with Ya-Ning Wu (UCI), Dr. Gregory Hickok (UCI)

How does the human brain manage laryngeal control of pitch during speech production? We used an altered auditory feedback (AAF) paradigm to investigate how Mandarin speakers compensate for f0 perturbations that shift their self-produced speech into a different tone category, as well as the neural network involved in the sensorimotor control of lexical tone production.

Ya-Ning Wu, Will Chih-Chao Chang & Gregory Hickok. (2024). Exploring Cross-Categorical Pitch Shift Effects on Mandarin Tone Production. Poster presented at the 16th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language Conference (SNL). Oct 24-26, Brisbane, Australia.

Sentence Predictability Shapes  the Encoding of Phonetic Detail
with Jiaxuan Li (UCI), Dr. Xin Xie (UCI)

Would listeners dynamically adjust how they process the acoustic-phonetic information of each word as a sentence unfolds? We manipulated the phonetic detail of the same words and placed them in varying sentences to examine whether listeners' ability to encode these subtle differences is influenced by how predictable the words are in the context.

Will Chih-Chao Chang, Jiaxuan Li & Xin Xie. (2024). Sentence Predictability Shapes the Encoding of Phonetic Detail. Poster presented at the 16th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language Conference (SNL). Oct 24-26, Brisbane, Australia.

Effects of Contrastive Hyper-articulation and Word Predictability on VOT Production
with Dr. Connor Mayer (UCI)

Are phonetic variations in speech simply the result of random noise during production processes, or are they systematically governed by underlying factors? We conducted a corpus analysis using data from Chodroff & Wilson (2018) to investigate how the VOT production of English voiced and voiceless stops is influenced by lexical and probabilistic factors, such as contrastive hyper-articulation and word predictability, in speech production.

Will Chih-Chao Chang & Connor Mayer. (2024). Effects of Contrastive Hyper-articulation and Word Predictability on VOT Production. Talk presented at the 7th California Meeting on Psycholinguistics (CAMP), Nov 16-17, La Jolla, CA, USA.

L2 Perception-production Link in English Vowel Imitation by Mandarin Speakers
with Chun-Ting Chien (NTUNHS), Dr. Yu-An Lu (NYCU)

Are there shared representations underlying both perception and production in second language learners? This study investigates how phonetic cue weighing and L1 categories mediate the perception-production for different L2 vowel contrasts in Mandarin learners of English. We used a phonetic imitation task that could better capture the tightly coupled relationship between perception and production.

Chih-Chao Chang, Chun-Ting Chien & Yu-An Lu. (2023). The Link Between Perception and Production of English Vowel Contrasts in Non-Native Speakers. In Proceedings of the 20th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhs). [link]

Neural Correlates of Phonotactic Context Effect in Speech Categorization
with Dr. Chia-Hsuan Liao (NTHU), Dr. Yu-An Lu (NYCU)

Does phonological knowledge of a language influence one's perception of speech sounds? Using a phonetic categorization task with EEG recordings, this study demonstrated that Mandarin listeners' vowel perception is biased toward sounds that forms legal sequences with the preceding consonants in Mandarin, with the effect observed as early as ~100ms after vowel onset.

Chih-Chao Chang, Chia-Hsuan Liao & Yu-An Lu. (2022). Neural Correlates of Phonotactic Context Effect in Speech Categorization. Poster presented at the 14th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language Conference (SNL). Oct 6-8, Philadelphia, PA, USA.

Phonological Priming with Non-words in Mandarin-speaking Children and Adults
with Dr. Hui-Chun Yang (NTUNHS)

How and when do children develop the ability to produce words as efficiently as adults? Using a cross-modal picture-word interference task, this study examines the roles of onsets, rhymes and tones in Mandarin word production. We explore how phonological representations are reorganized from childhood to adulthood.

Chih-Chao Chang, & Hui-Chun Yang. (2023). Investigation of Mandarin Word Production in Children and Adults: Evidence from Phonological Priming with Non-words. Language and Speech, 66(2), 500-529. [link]