Language Production Laboratory

Director: Jan Charles-Luce, Ph.D.

The Language Production Laboratory is dedicated to understanding how and why speakers modify their speech production in subtle but distinctive ways as measured in the acoustic speech signal. For example, we have examined the effects of the semantics of the message and the pragmatics of the speaking situation on influencing speakers' adjustments of word duration and preservation of phonemic categories. Our programmatic research investigates these and other cognitive factors such as memory and linguistic representations in an attempt to understand how cognition and language interact and how this may be reflected in speech production. Moreover, we examine cognitive effects across the life span, examining speech production in young children, young adults, and older adults.