間眅埶AV

News Archives

The LABlab Welcomes 2 New Members!

This semester, we welcome two undergrad research assitants - Michelle Kim Le, a linguistics major and psychology minor along with Dahai Zhang, a computational linguistics major. We look forward to working with you both!

June 2016 - Job Posting - Tech Support Specialist and Lab Computer Manager/Consultant

The Language and Brain Lab (LAB lab) in the Linguistics Department at 間眅埶AV is looking for a part time tech support specialist and computer manager/consultant. Under the supervision of the lab director, Dr Yue Wang, you will be supporting approximately 15 users, mostly in a Windows environment, with some Mac clients. You must have excellent communication skills and be comfortable working in an academic and research environment. Some knowledge of Linux and Windows server administration is required.

Required Qualifications:

  • Experience with Windows desktop technical support
  • Excellent communications skills
  • Excellent troubleshooting skills (Diagnostics of software and hardware issues)
  • Understanding of networking fundamentals
  • Familiarity with Mac OS X
  • Knowledge of PC hardware and repair

Bonus Qualifications

  • Good understanding of backup systems, using a variety of tools across platforms
  • Experience working with or managing Active Directory
  • Experience with Linux server administration
  • Good understanding of Linux command line and configuration tools
  • Experience working with experimental software (eg, EPrime, EEG)
  • PC building and repair experience
  • Good understanding of IT security fundamentals
  • Experience working with audio equipment (mixers and amplifiers)
  • Familiarity with Linux
  • Familiarity with Windows Server 2012

The position is part 簫time (approx. 5-10hrs/week), contract based, and is renewable on a per semester basis. Pay rate is commensurate with experience and qualifications.
Please send a resume with references to: Yue Wang (yuew@sfu.ca)

ICPhS 2015 Research Presentations

The Language and Brain Lab is proud to be presenting the following three projects at the 18th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences this week in Glasgow, Scotland.  More info available at

Acoustic characteristics of clearly spoken English tense and lax vowels

Leung, Keith King Wui; Jongman, Allard; Wang, Yue and Sereno, Joan A.

The acoustic features of clearly produced vowels have been widely studied, but a less explored area concerns the difference in the adaptations of tense and lax clear vowels. This study explored the clear production of three pairs of English tense and lax vowels (/i-阞/, /-/, /u-/) to determine whether tense vowels show a larger clear versus conversational speech difference than lax vowels. Vowel space, individual formant frequency values, dynamic formant information and vowel duration of tense and lax vowels were examined. Results suggest there was more conversational-to-clear vowel lengthening for tense vowels than for lax vowels. However, an opposite effect was found for spectral measures. Lax vowels yielded greater vowel space expansion, formant frequency change, and dynamic formant movement than tense vowels in clear speech.

Examining visible articulatory features in clear and conversational speech

Tang, Lisa; Hannah, Beverly; Jongman, Allard; Sereno, Joan A.; Wang, Yue and Hamarneh, Ghassan

This study investigated the relationship between clear and conversational speech styles and the motion of visible articulators. Using state-of-the-art computer vision and image processing techniques, we examined front and side view videos of 18 native English speakers faces while they recited six English words containing various vowels (keyed, kid, cod, cud, cooed, could) and extracted measurements corresponding to the lip and jaw movements. Significant effects were found for style, gender, and saliency of visual speech cues. Clear speech exhibited longer vowel duration and more vertical lip stretching and jaw movement for all vowels, more horizontal lip stretching for front vowels, and a greater degree of lip protrusion for rounded vowels. Additionally, greater articulatory movements were found for male than female speakers in clear speech. These articulatory movement data demonstrate that speakers modify their speech productions in response to communicative needs in different speech contexts.

Effects of musical experience on the Thai rate-varied vowel length perception

Cooper, Angela; Wang, Yue and Ashley, Richard

Musical experience has been demonstrated to play a significant role in the perception of non-native speech contrasts. The present study examined whether or not musical experience facilitated the normalization of speaking rate in the perception of non-native vowel length contrasts. Musicians and non-musicians were first briefly familiarized with Thai vowel length distinctions before completing identification and AX discrimination tasks with items contrasting in vowel length at three speaking rates. Results revealed that musicians significantly outperformed non-musicians at identifying and discriminating non-native rate-varying length distinctions, suggesting that their attunement to rhythmic and temporal information in music transferred to facilitating their ability to perceive non-native temporal speech contrasts at varying speaking rates.

Congratulations Keith!

As part of his PhD program, our Research Coordinator, Keith, has completed his first of two Qualifying Papers (QPs). Read the abstract below!

Title: The acoustic characteristics of clearly spoken English vowels

Abstract: Speakers naturally adopt clear speaking style when there is background noise or when listeners have hearing impairments. In order to understand the difference between a clear and a natural, conversational speaking style, the acoustic properties of clearly produced vowels have been widely studied. Overall, clear vowels are characterized by longer syllable and vowel duration, higher pitch, higher amplitude and an expanded vowel space defined by formant frequencies. A less explored area concerns the difference in the adaptations of tense and lax clear vowels, and talkers response to various types of recognition errors that prompted their productions. This study attempted to explore the clear production of three pairs of English tense and lax vowels, in response to recognition errors. Prompted by an interactive computer program, 5 male and 5 female native speakers of Canadian English produced vowels in the context of /kVd/ in conversational and clear speaking styles and the acoustic properties of their productions were analyzed. This study had the following hypotheses: (1) there would be overall style effects consistent with previous findings; (2) Tense vowels would demonstrate a larger clear and conversational speech difference than lax vowels in terms of all measurements; (3) The vowel repeated after miscomprehension would be more different from the sound they are mistaken for. Results suggested that conversational-to-clear modifications generally followed previous findings, with the exception of F1 and F3. Tense vowels lengthened more than lax vowels when switching from conversational to clear speech. Contrary to the hypotheses, lax vowels yielded more conversational-to-clear modifications than tense vowels in spectral measures. Moreover, acoustic-phonetic modifications did not change as a function of recognition errors.

Congratulations Courtney!

We are pleased to announce that our former Research Assistant, Courtney, has been accepted into the Masters of Speech Language Pathology program at UBC for Fall 2015!

Congratulations Sylvia!

Our Research Assistant, Sylvia, has been accepted to start her PhD in our lab and Linguistics at 間眅埶AV. More details to come!

2014 March

PG Project accepted to Conference in Dublin!

March 17, 2014

The Pitch-Gesture Project (PG) has been accepted to the Speech Prosody Conference #7, which will be held in Dublin, Ireland from May 20-23, 2014.  Congratulations and great work to all of the team members who have been working very hard on this project to make this happen!  Well done!

For more information on the conference, please visit the conference website at

The paper is being revised and will be released very soon!  We are looking forward to the release of this paper.

for information about all current projects.

The LABLab Says Goodbye to Two of its Members

March 1, 2014

The LABLab would like to thank Parveen Kaila & Roxane Chan for their hard work and dedication to the LABlab.  We will miss their presence at the lab, but wish all the best for what comes for them in the future!

View Parveen's, Roxane's, and other former bios by clicking here

2013 October

The Language and Brain Lab Welcomes PhD Candidate, Olga Vasilev!

October 24, 2013

We would like to welcome Olga Vasilev to the LABlab team! Olga is currently working towards a PhD in Developmental Psychology. She has a BA and MA in Linguistics and a MAE in Educational Psychology degree during her studies in the US. She is interested in the area of language and cognition, their evolution, and first language acquisition. 

Welcome Olga!
 to read more and read all current LABlab members' bios.

Beverly Hannah Awarded the SSHRC CGS and 間眅埶AV Provost Prize of Distinction

October 16, 2013

Beverly has been awarded the SSHRC Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship, and the 間眅埶AV Provost Prize of Distinction, along with a partial Graduate Fellowship from the Department of Linguistics for the 2013-2014 academic year. This semester, Beverly is focusing her research time at the lab on data collection for the Audio-Visual Communication project, and on preparing manuscripts for publication for the PG and AVA projects. 

Congratulations, Beverly!

Lindsay Leong Graduates from MA Program

October 10, 2013

Following a successful thesis defence on August 13, 2013, Lindsay Leong (Walker) officially graduated with a Master's of Arts in Linguistics degree on October 10, 2013. Lindsay's thesis project explored auditory and articulatory priming effects on the perception and production of speech sounds, and was affectionately dubbed '3PO' for short. Lindsay has also been an integral part of the Pitch-Gesture project, conducting much of the data analysis for that project, and will be very much missed. 

Congratulations, Lindsay, and we wish you all the best in your future endeavours!

2013 September

Welcome To Our Newest LABlab Member Keith Leung!

September 26, 2013

We would like to welcome Keith Leung, the newest member of the LABlab team! Keith is a PhD student in Linguistics whose research interests include phonetics and psycholinguistics, particularly in linguistic tone production and perception. Keith will start by working on the Audio-Visual Communications project. Welcome Keith!

to see all current LABlab members' bios.

Welcome Back LABlab Member Beverly Hannah

September 26, 2013

Welcome back to Beverly Hannah, who has returned to the LABlab as a Masters Student in Linguistics after taking maternity leave! We are excited to have Beverly back, who will start her term working on the Audio-Visual Communications project (AVC) with Keith!

Welcome to the Fall 2013 Semester at the Language and Brain Lab!

This semester, we are continuing to do work on a number of projects, including the the Pitch-Gesture (PG) study, the Musical Ability in Bilinguals (MAB), Conjunction Fallacy (CF) study, and Audio-Visual Communication (AVC) study.

If you would like to participate in any of these studies as a subject, visit the section of the LABlab site to see if you qualify. We need lots of participants, so don't be shy - email us today for more information.

Participants receive $10/hour, with our gratitude for your participation in furthering language research!

2013 June

The LABlab Welcomes Two New Members!

June 3, 2013

We would like to welcome Elysia Saundry (Left) and Lisa Tang (Right) to the LABlab team!  Elysia is a BA Student majoring in linguistics with an extended minor in psychology.  She is interested in speech perception and bilingualism, and she enjoys hiking the trails around the Greater Vancouver area.  Lisa is a Graduate Student in the Computing Sciences program.  Her research interests involve tracking, image registration, motion analysis, and shape matching.  Lisa will be assisting on a new project which compares clear and conversational speech.

to see all current LABlab members' bios.

Congratulations Graduates!

June 13, 2013

Alyssa LeeParveen KailaSonya GillThe LABlab would like to congratulate this year's graduates of the Linguistics department as well as graduates of all other departments at 間眅埶AV! 

Amongst them are three members of the LABlab team: Sonya Gill (BA Linguistics Major, Psychology Minor), Parveen Kaila (BA Linguistics Major, Psychology Minor), and Alyssa Lee (BA Communications Major, Linguistics Minor).

Congratulations Sonya, Parveen and Alyssa on your Convocation!  We wish you the best in your future endeavours.

2013 May

Welcome to the Summer 2013 Semester at the Language and Brain Lab!

This semester, we are continuing to do work on a number of projects, including the Cross Language Tone Perception (XLTP) study, the Auditory and Articulatory Priming Effects on the Perception and Production of Speech Sounds (3PO) study, the Pitch-Gesture (PG) study, the Musical Ability in Bilinguals (MAB), and Conjunction Fallacy (CF)study.

If you would like to participate in any of these studies as a subject, visit the section of the LABlab site to see if you qualify. We need lots of participants, so don't be shy - email us today for more information.

Participants receive $10/hour, with our gratitude for your participation in furthering language research!

Katelyn Eng Receives Undergraduate Student Research Award

May 27, 2013

We are happy to announce that one of our research assistants, Katelyn Eng, has received a part-time Vice President Research Undergraduate Student Research Award (VPR USRA) for a second time to conduct research under the supervision of Dr. Yue Wang in the Language and Brain Lab for the duration of the Summer 2013 semester.

Congratulations again, Katelyn!

Two Representatives to Visit Montr矇al to Represent Research Project at ASA Conference

May 15, 2013

We are excited to announce that one of the LABlab's projects has had posters accepted to the Acoustical Society of America's upcoming conference, taking place in Montr矇al, Qu矇bec, June 2-7, 2013!

Gesturing Pitch: Can co-speech hand gestures facilitate learning of non-native speech sounds? - Katelyn Eng, Lindsay Leong (Walker), Beverly Hannah & Dr. Yue Wang

Katelyn Eng and Lindsay Leong (Walker) will be representing the project at this year's conference in Montr矇al with .  Have fun Katelyn, Lindsay, and Dr. Wang, and job well done!

Melissa Philley Accepted into UBC's Speech Sciences Program

May 8, 2013

We are happy to announce that one of our former research assistants, Melissa Philley, has been accepted to the Speech Language Pathology MSc Program at University of British-Columbia starting Fall 2013. 

Congratulations Melissa!  We wish you all the best for your future studies and career!

Anthony Chor Receives Undergraduate Student Research Award

May 8, 2013

We are happy to announce that one of our research assistants, Anthony Chor, has received a part-time Vice President Research Undergraduate Student Research Award (VPR USRA) to conduct research under the supervision of Dr. Yue Wang in the Language and Brain Lab for the duration of the Summer 2013 semester.

Congratulations, Anthony!

2013 April

Guest Speakers Dr. Joan Sereno and Dr. Allard Jongman (University of Kansas)

April 4, 2013

The Department of Linguistics and the Cognitive Science Program invited Dr. Joan Sereno and Dr. Allard Jongman to deliver two talks on April 3rd, 2013 at 3:30 and April 4th, 2013 at 11:30, respectively.

Please Click here for more information.

Spring 2013 End of Semester Workshop

April 5, 2013

The Language and Brain Lab (LABlab) will hold our end-of-semester presentation and workshop on Friday April 5. You are welcome to join us for any of the presentations or for all.  The program informaiton can be downloaded here

2013 January

Welcome to the Spring 2013 Semester at the Language and Brain Lab!

This semester, we are continuing to do work on a number of projects, including the Cross Language Tone Perception (XLTP) study, the Auditory and Articulatory Priming Effects on the Perception and Production of Speech Sounds (3PO) study, the Pitch-Gesture (PG) study, the Musical Ability in Bilinguals (MAB) study.

If you would like to participate in any of these studies as a subject, visit the section of the LABlab site to see if you qualify. We need lots of participants, so don't be shy - email us today for more information.

Participants receive $10/hour, with our gratitude for your participation in furthering language research!

January 9th, 2013

Welcome Dr. Haisheng Jiang to our Lab as the new Lab Coordinator

This semester, we are welcoming Dr. Haisheng Jiang to be our new Lab Coordinator. He finished his PhD degree in Linguistics at 間眅埶AV and is now teaching Mandarin Chinese at 間眅埶AV. 

2012 November

November 15, 2012

Katelyn Eng Receives Undergraduate Student Research Award

We are happy to announce that one of our research assistants, Katelyn Eng, has received a part-time Vice President Research Undergraduate Student Research Award (VPR USRA) to conduct research under the supervision of Dr. Yue Wang in the Language and Brain Lab for the duration of the Spring 2013 semester.

Congratulations, Katelyn!

2012 October

October 10th, 2012

Alyssa Lee Receives Undergraduate Student Research Award

We are happy to announce that one of our research assistants, Alyssa Lee, has received a part-time Vice President Research Undergraduate Student Research Award (VPR USRA) to conduct research under the supervision of Dr. Yue Wang in the Language and Brain Lab for the duration of the Spring 2013 semester.

Congratulations, Alyssa!

October 4th, 2012

Three of our former and current lab members graduated with their MA and PhD in Linguistics or Psychology today. Congratulations to Xianghua and Saya Kawase. We wish you all the best for your future studies and careers.

2012 September

Welcome to the Fall 2012 Semester at the Language and Brain Lab!

This semester, we are continuing to do work on a number of projects, including the Cross Language Tone Perception (XLTP) study, the Auditory and Articulatory Priming Effects on the Perception and Production of Speech Sounds (3PO) study, the Pitch-Gesture (PG) study, the Musical Ability in Bilinguals (MAB) study.

If you would like to participate in any of these studies as a subject, visit the section of the LABlab site to see if you qualify. We need lots of participants, so don't be shy - email us today for more information.

Participants receive $10/hour, with our gratitude for your participation in furthering language research!

2012 August

August 24-25, 2012 - Pronunciation in Second Language Learning and Teaching (PSLLT) Conference

間眅埶AV's Linguistics Department hosted this year's at the Wosk Centre for Dialogue in Downtown Vancouver, August 24-25, 2012. Several of the Language and Brain Lab's members participated as conference organizers, presenters, and volunteers. LABlab director Dr. Yue Wang served as one of the conference local planning committee members, and as part of the judging panel for student posters at the conference. Saya Kawase also served as part of the local planning committee, and also presented part of her research for the AVA project conducted at the LABlab. Daniel Chang presented and won Best Student Poster for a project he and a classmate developed during an undergraduate Linguistics class. Beverly Hannah designed the program cover, nametags, and signage for the conference. Also, thanks to all our lab members (Lindsay Walker, Katelyn Eng, Daniel Chang, Saya Kawase, Parveen Kaila, Beverly Hannah) who volunteered at the registration and information desk all weekend to help keep the conference running smoothly!

August 2, 2012 - Saya Kawase - MA Thesis Defence

Effects of visual speech information on native listener judgments of L2 consonants

Thursday August 2, 2012, 3:00pm in Bennett Library Room 2020 at 間眅埶AV Burnaby. Open to the Public.

Please join us for Saya Kawase's MA Thesis Defense on Thursday August 2nd, 2012!


Abstract

Research on the intelligibility of nonnative (L2) speech productions has focused on native listener judgments of auditorily presented L2 productions. However, little research has explored how visual information in L2 speech productions affects native listeners perception. In the present study, native Canadian English listeners were asked to identify six English phonemes produced by native speakers of Japanese as well as native speakers of Canadian English as controls. The stimuli were presented with three input modalities: (1) audiovisual (AV), with simultaneous presentation of speaker voice and facial/mouth movements, (2) audio-only (AO), with speaker voice only, and (3) visual-only (VO), with speaker face only. The phonemes include /v, 庛, l, 伄/, which are not existent in Japanese as well as /b, s/ that are shared in both Japanese and English consonant inventories. The results show that the listeners perceived the Japanese productions of the phonemes /b, v, s, 庛/ as significantly more intelligible when presented in the AV condition compared to the AO condition, indicating facilitative effects of visual speech information on the intelligibility of nonnative productions. However, the Japanese productions of /伄/ were perceived as less intelligible in the AV condition compared to the AO condition. Further analysis revealed that, compared to the native English productions, the Japanese speakers produced /伄/ without visible lip-rounding, indicating that nonnative speakers incorrect articulatory configurations may decrease the degree of intelligibility. These results suggest that visual speech information may either positively or negatively affect the intelligibility of L2 productions.


Keywords: audiovisual speech perception of L2 consonants; Japanese learners of English.

Members of Examining Committee:

Chair, Chair, Dr Chung-hye Han
Sr. Supervisor, Dr Yue Wang
Sypervisor, Dr Murray Munro
External Examiner, Dr Yukari Hirata

2012 July

July 26, 2012 - 3 Posters Accepted to 164th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America

We are happy to announce that three of the LABlab's projects have had posters accepted to the Acoustical Society of America's upcoming conference, taking place in Kansas City, Missouri, October 22-26, 2012.

Effects of acoustic and linguistic aspects on Japanese pitch accent processing - Xianghua Wu, Saya Kawase, and Yue Wang

The influence of visual information on the perception of Japanese-accented speech - Saya Kawase, Beverly Hannah, and Yue Wang

Cross-language assimilation of lexical tone - Alexander, J.A. and Wang, Y.

Abstracts

Effects of acoustic and linguistic aspects on Japanese pitch accent processing
Xianghua Wu, Saya Kawase, and Yue Wang


This study investigates the hemispheric processing of Japanese pitch accent by native and non-native listeners. The non-natives differ in their first (L1) and second (L2) language experience with prosodic pitch, including Mandarin (tonal L1) and English (non-tonal L1) listeners with or without Japanese learning experience.  All listeners completed a dichotic listening test in which minimal pairs differing in pitch accent were presented. Overall, the results demonstrate a right hemisphere lateralization across groups, indicating holistic processing of temporal cues as the pitch accent patterns span across disyllabic domain. Moreover, the three pitch accent patterns reveal different degrees of hemispheric dominance, presumably attributable to the acoustic cues to each pattern which involve different hemispheric asymmetries. The results also reveal group difference, reflecting the effects of linguistic experience. Specifically, the English listeners with no Japanese background, compared to the other groups, exhibit greater variance in hemispheric dominance as a function of pitch accent difference, showing a greater reliance on acoustic cues when linguistic information is lacking. Together, the findings suggest an interplay of acoustic and linguistic aspects in the processing of Japanese pitch accent but showing a more prominent acoustic influence. [Research supported by NSERC]

The influence of visual information on the perception of Japanese-accented speech
Saya Kawase, Beverly Hannah, and Yue Wang

This study examines how visual information in nonnative speech affects native listener judgments of second language (L2) speech production. Native Canadian English listeners perceived three English phonemic contrasts (/b-v, 庛-s, l-伄/) produced by native Japanese speakers as well as native Canadian English speakers as controls. Among the stimuli, / v, 庛, l, 伄/ are not existent in the Japanese consonant inventory. These stimuli were presented under audio-visual (AV), audio-only (AO), and visual-only (VO) conditions. The results showed that while overall perceptual judgments of the nonnative phonemes (/v, 庛, l, 伄/) were significantly less accurate / less intelligible than the native phonemes (/b,s/), the English listeners perceived the Japanese productions of the phonemes /v, 庛, b,s/ as significantly more intelligible when presented in AV compared to the AO condition. However, the Japanese production of /伄/ was perceived as less intelligible in the AV compared to the AO condition.  Further analysis revealed that a significant number of Japanese productions of /伄/ lacked lip-rounding, indicating that nonnative speakers incorrect articulatory configurations may decrease intelligibility. These results suggest that visual cues in L2 speech productions may be either facilitative or inhibitory in native perception of L2 accented-speech. [Research supported by 間眅埶AV and SSHRC]

Cross-language assimilation of lexical tone
Alexander, J.A. and Wang, Y.

We extend to lexical-tone systems a model of second-language perception, the Perceptual Assimilation Model (PAM) [Best & Tyler, 2007], to examine whether/how native-language lexical-tone inventory composition influences perception of novel tone. Native listeners of Cantonese, Thai, and Mandarin perform a tone mapping-rating assimilation task. Listeners hear CV syllables bearing all tones of Cantonese, Thai, Mandarin, and Yoruba languages with different tone inventories. They (1) map the tone they hear to the nearest native tone category, and (2) provide a goodness rating on a 5-point scale (5 = perfect). As predicted by the PAM, listeners assimilated non-native tones to the phonetically-closest native tone categories. Listeners attended primarily to pitch-contour, and secondarily to pitch-height, contrasts for the mappings. E.g., Mandarin listeners assimilated the Thai high level (phonetically mid-to-high-rising) tone to Mandarin rising tone 76% of the time, and to Mandarin high-level tone only 22% of the time. Also as predicted, all novel tones did not assimilate equally well to native categories; mappings received ratings between 2.9-4.1, averaging 3.5. The groups different patterns of results indicate that novel-tone perception is influenced by experience with the native-language tone inventory, and that listeners attend to gradient phonetic detail to assimilate novel tones to native-tone categories. This work is supported by NSF grant 0965227 to J.A.

July 26, 2012 - Inaugural Lecture by Dr. Yue Wang

Thursday July 26, 11:30am in Halpern Centre 126 at 間眅埶AV Burnaby. Open to the Public.

The Department of Linguistics' Inaugural Lecture Series features research by faculty members who have reached a major milestone in their careers. It is an opportunity for them to reflect upon their past achievements and to ponder future developments in their field.

TUNING THE TONES: One long-deliberated question in speech perception is the extent to which it involves language-specific mechanisms or reflects a human innate ability to process general physical properties. Some research findings support the independence of speech and non-speech processing, whereas others indicate shared general sensory-motor mechanisms. However, the dynamic interplay between the two processes has not been fully addressed. This talk reports a series of experiments on the perception of linguistic pitch by native and non-native speakers. We address whether and how linguistic pitch processing (1) differs from the processing of non-speech pitch, (2) involves integration of information across sensory-motor modalities, (3) alters as a function of linguistic experience and learning, and (4) is affected by experience with non-linguistic pitch such as musical training. Findings of these studies suggest an interrelated network of sensory and cognitive mechanisms employed in linguistic pitch processing, and that these mechanisms are shaped by different experiences.

July 19, 2012 - New Project Launch

We are happy to announce the launch of a new project at the LABlab!

A Closer Investigation of Tonal Language Experiences and the Musical Ability of Bilingual Speakers - Principal Investigator: Daniel Chang

Project Description: This research examines how tone-language experience influences the perception of music. Native Cantonese speakers, native English speakers, and early English-Cantonese bilinguals will be asked to participate in a Relative-pitch task and an Absolute-pitch task. The present study wants to explore whether early exposure to a tone language, Cantonese for example, facilitates the musical ability of absolute pitch and relative pitch. That is, this study will enable us to know whether speaking a tone language is beneficial to music perception.

This project will also involve collaboration with Dr. Nancy Hedberg of 間眅埶AV Linguistics.

2012 June

June 14, 2012 - Congratulations, Graduates!
Five of our former and current lab members graduated with their BAs in Linguistics and Psychology today. Congratulations to Nisha Banga, Daniel Chang, Keren Hernandez, Alison Kumpula, and Beverly Wu! We wish you all the best for your future studies and careers.

June 14th, 2012 - New Papers Published
We just received word that not one, but TWO papers got published today! A. Cooper & Y. Wang (2012) "The Influence of Linguistic and Musical Experience on Cantonese Word Learning" PDF has been published in the latest issue of the Journal of the Acoustic Society of America, and X. Wu, J. Tu, & Y. Wang (2012) "Native and Non-native Processing of Japanese Pitch Accent" was published in the latest issue of Applied Psycholinguistics PDF.

June 8, 2012 - Saya Kawase & Yue Wang Interspeech 2012 Paper
We are happy to announce that Saya Kawase and Yue Wang have had a paper accepted for oral presentation at the Interspeech 2012 conference taking place in Portland, Oregon, September 9-13, 2012! The paper is entitled "Effects of visual speech information on native listener judgments of L2 consonant intelligibility" and is a partial data report of Saya's MA thesis project being conducted in the LABlab. Congratulations!

May 30, 2012 - Daniel Chang IJAS 2012 & JALTCALL 2012
Congratulations to LABlab member Daniel Chang, who presented a poster at the International Journal of Arts and Sciences Conference 2012 (IJAS 2012) this week at Ryerson University, entitled Integration of Facebook in Schools: Innovation or Danger?

That's not all! Next, Daniel will be hopping on a plane to present at the JALTCALL 2012 conference in Konan University in Nishinomiya, Japan, June 1-3. The poster is entitled, The Integration of Second Life in ESL Instruction: a Community-Practice Approach.

Daniel is a promising young undergraduate researcher majoring in Linguistics and minoring in Education. He is interested in second language acquisition, non-native speech production and perception, and bilingual education.

2012 May

May 25, 2012 - Xianghua Wu PhD Defense
Congratulations to Xianghua Wu, who successfully defended her PhD thesis on May 24, 2012! She presented an interesting summary of her research entitled "A cross-language investigation of phonetic and phonological processing of lexical tone". You can read the abstract at

May 11, 2012 - SSHRC Insight Grant Awarded

We are happy to announce that the Language & Brain Lab has been awarded a SSHRC Insight Grant from 2012-2017 to continue our research in the areas of multi-lingual and multi-modal speech perception, processing, and learning. See our and pages for details.

May 24, 2012 - Xianghua Wu - PhD Thesis Defence

A cross-language investigation of phonetic and phonological processing of lexical tone

Date: Thursday May 24, 2012
Time: 10:30am
Location: Bennett Library Room 2020

Please join us for LABlab member Xianghua Wu's PhD Thesis Defense on May 24th, 2012!

Abstract

In an investigation of how lexical tone is perceived and processed at the phonetic and phonological levels, listeners from diverse language backgrounds participated in three perceptual studies. In the first, native Mandarin and Thai listeners assimilated non-native tones to their native tone categories. Results indicated that occurrence of a lower-level phonetic and a higher-level phonological assimilation process was related to listeners' tone experience, as inexperienced listeners recognized only the phonetic distinctions, whereas experienced listeners were sensitive to both phonetic and phonological distinctions between native and non-native tone categories.

In the second study, native Mandarin, Thai and English listeners participated in a forced-choice tone perception test in which they identified the four Mandarin tone categories. Identification accuracy and confusion patterns revealed that previous tone experience predicted tone perception at the phonetic and phonological levels. Better performance was demonstrated for native than non-native, and experienced than inexperienced listeners. Experienced Thai listeners also showed more native-like performance than experienced English listeners. Lexical information from the carrier words was also found to help Mandarin and English listeners recognize difficult tones.

In the third study, participants from the second one completed a dichotic listening test assessing tone lateralization in the brain. The results demonstrated a strong influence of acoustic properties, as tones with dynamic F0 contours were lateralized to the left hemisphere while those with flatter F0 contours were lateralized to the right hemisphere. Meanwhile, native and non-native tone experience was associated with a larger degree of left hemisphere activation for Mandarin and experienced Thai listeners relative to those in the remaining groups.

In summary, these three studies indicate tone perception and processing at both phonetic and phonological levels. In relation to tone experience, inexperienced listeners may attach more importance to phonetic variation while experienced listeners are sensitive to both phonetic and phonological differences. In terms of theoretical contributions, tone perception results extend the current models of speech perception to the suprasegmental level while tone lateralization results provide evidence supporting the acoustic and functional hypotheses.

Members of Examining Committee:
Chair, Dr. Chung-hye Han
Sr. Supervisor, Dr. Murray Munro
Co-Supervisor, Dr. Yue Wang
Internal Examiner, Dr. Christian Guilbault
External Examiner, Dr. Valter Ciocco

2012 March

Beverly Wu Receives Undergraduate Student Research Award

We are happy to announce that one of our research assistants, Beverly Wu, has received a full-time Vice President Research Undergraduate Student Research Award (VPR USRA) to conduct research under the supervision of Dr. Yue Wang in the Language and Brain Lab for the duration of the Summer 2012 semester.

Congratulations, Beverly!

2012 February

The Language and Brain Lab is now on Facebook and Twitter!
Visit us at and at

2012 January

Alison Kumpula Receives Undergraduate Student Research Award

We are happy to announce that one of our research assistants, Alison Kumpula, has received a full-time Vice President Research Undergraduate Student Research Award (VPR USRA) to conduct research under the supervision of Dr. Yue Wang in the Language and Brain Lab for the duration of the Spring 2012 semester.

Congratulations, Alison!

Welcome to the Spring 2012 Semester at the Language and Brain Lab!

This semester, we are continuing to do work on a number of projects, including the EEG-Musician study (EEG-M), the Cross Language Tone Perception (XLTP) study, the Pitch Accent Learning (PAL) study, and the Audio-Visual Accent (AVA) study.

If you would like to participate in any of these studies as a subject, visit the section of the LABlab site to see if you qualify. We need lots of participants, so don't be shy - email us today for more information.

Participants receive $10/hour, with our gratitude for your participation in furthering language research!

2011 November

Dr. Jen Alexander Interviewed on Fairchild Radio

Dr. Jennifer A. Alexander, our National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the LABlab, was interviewed on Vancouver's Chinese Fairchild Radio for a segment about Linguistics and the research being conducted at the Language and Brain Lab. The first segment was broadcast on November 18th, 2011, and the second segment will be broadcast on AM 1470 on Friday November 25th, 2011 from 10:30-11:30am.

Click here to listen to a clip from the November 18th broadcast (14 minutes, Cantonese and English).

2011 September

Welcome to Fall 2011 semester at the Language and Brain Lab!

This semester, we are continuing to do work on a number of projects, including the EEG-Musician study (EEG-M), the Cross Language Tone Perception (XLTP) study, the Pitch Accent Learning (PAL) study, and the Audio-Visual Accent (AVA) study.

If you would like to participate in any of these studies as a subject, visit the Participants Needed section of the LABlab site to see if you qualify. We need lots of participants, so don't be shy - email us today for more information.

Participants receive $10/hour, with our gratitude for your participation in furthering language research!

2011 August

August 8th, 2011 - New Journal Article Published in Applied Psycholinguistics

Congratulations to past and present LABlab members Xianghua Wu, Jung-Yueh Tu, and Lab Director Yue Wang on the publication of a new paper in Applied Psycholinguistics, entitled "Native and Nonnative Processing of Japanese Pitch Accent". Download PDF

ABSTRACT - The theoretical framework of this study is based on the prevalent debate of whether prosodic processing is influenced by higher level linguistic-specific circuits or reflects lower level encoding of physical properties. Using the dichotic listening technique, the study investigates the hemispheric processing of Japanese pitch accent by native Japanese listeners and two groups of nonnative listeners with no prior pitch accent experience but differing in their native language experience with linguistic pitch: native listeners of Mandarin (a tone language with higher linguistic functional use of pitch) and native listeners of English (a stress language with lower functional use of pitch). The overall results reveal that, for both native and nonnative listeners, the processing of Japanese pitch accent is less lateralized (compared to lexical tone processing, which has been found to be a left hemisphere property). However, detailed analysis with individual pitch accents across groups shows a right hemisphere preference for processing the highaccentlow (HL) pattern, a left hemisphere preference for LH, and no hemisphere dominance for LH, indicating a significant reliance on the acoustic cues. These patterns are particularly prominent with the English listeners who are least experienced with linguistic pitch. Together, the findings suggest an interplay of linguistic and acoustic aspects in the processing of Japanese pitch accent by native and nonnative listeners.

This study examines the role of linguistic experience in the perception and hemispheric processing of Japanese pitch accent by native Japanese listeners and two groups of nonnative listeners differing in their native language (L1) backgrounds with linguistic pitch: Mandarin Chinese and English.

2011 July

July 28, 2011 - ICPhS-PLRT Conference Practice Session

The Language and Brain Lab would like to invite you to attend a practice session for the talks and posters to be presented at the 17th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences and its satellite meeting, the Psycholinguistic Representation of Tone. This practice session will be held in AQ 6106 on July 28th from 10 AM to 1:30 PM. Light snacks and refreshments will be provided throughout the session. We hope you can join us! 

Click here to download a PDF of the schedule for the session along with the abstracts for each of the presentations.

May 23-27, 2011 - 161st Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America

Dr. Jen Alexander and Xianghua Wu were invited to present their latest research findings during the poster sessions at the 161st Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in Seattle, Washington, which took place May 23-27, 2011. Dr. Yue Wang and Saya Kawase also travelled with the group to participate in the conference.

Summer 2011 - New Projects at the LABlab

The Language and Brain Lab has a number of projects launching this summer, including a new branch of the The Processing and Learning of Pitch in Speech project, studying the differences in tone perception between musicians and non-musicians using EEG, as well as the Audio-Visual Accent project, led by Saya Kawase (MA student).

If you would like to participate in either of these studies as a subject, visit the Participants Needed section of the LABlab site to see if you qualify. We need lots of participants, so don't be shy - email us today for more information.

Participants receive $10/hour, with our gratitude for your participation in furthering language research!