Undergraduate Sydney Walton is “learning by doing” in the Phonological Processing Lab
Speaking through sign language in a local community American Sign Language (ASL) class, Sydney Walton got signing with classmate Lydia Castro. They were amazed to discover that they were both Linguistics students at 丁香园AV and Lydia explained their MA thesis work on handshape markedness in ASL. Now after a few semesters in his undergraduate studies, Sydney happily says, 鈥淚t鈥檚 been fun to come full circle from that encounter and actually work on their study with them.鈥�
Sydney started volunteering in the , or PhonoLab, led by Dr. Ashley Farris-Trimble, last January. As a volunteer, Sydney worked five hours each week, mainly helping with Lydia Castro鈥檚 HandShark project. The study investigates what makes visual languages more or less difficult to learn, particularly when the handshapes are rare. As a volunteer, Sydney鈥檚 work involved collecting data, sending out participation links, testing the build for bugs, and the like. 鈥淚 was really enjoying that because of my background in ASL,鈥� Sydney explains.
In the spring, Sydney was awarded a USRA (Undergraduate Student Research Award) to work on the lab鈥檚 Learning Complex Phonology series of studies. The VPR USRAs are granted to undergraduate students working in a research capacity with an academic supervisor for a 16-week period and are jointly funded by the Office of the Vice-President, Research and International, and the department鈥檚 research funds. The Learning Complex Phonology studies examine how adults and children learn complex sound patterns: whether and how individual phonological patterns can be combined, and how that combination affects listeners鈥� ability to access lexical information.
鈥淚 don鈥檛 have a lot of research background,鈥� Sydney explains, 鈥渟o it鈥檚 new and exciting to learn a different way of approaching the same material. I鈥檝e studied phonology and language development from a bunch of different perspectives . . . and I鈥檝e read experimental research, but I鈥檝e never performed it. Usually, Methods is the section they tell you to skip when you鈥檙e reading it in lecture,鈥� he says with a laugh, 鈥渟o it鈥檚 fun to spend a lot of time in the Methods section and actually be able to see it. It really helps you to understand it.鈥�
Sydney will be working part-time (17.5 hours per week) to help develop the online experiments for the Learning Complex Phonology project and will take the lead on planning and developing an eye-tracking experiment with the aim to have in-person participants in the fall. 鈥淚鈥檝e studied [eye-tracking] in courses, but I鈥檝e never really worked with that technology, especially not behind the scenes,鈥� Sydney remarks. 鈥淚t will be fun to know more about it from the inside. I鈥檓 really excited about this one.鈥�
Sydney has about one year left in his undergraduate degree: majoring in Cognitive Science, minoring in Learning and Developmental Disabilities, and pursuing the Speech Science certificate. He hopes to become a Speech-Language Pathologist, focusing on speech and communication development in children with autism.
Sydney鈥檚 advice for students thinking about joining a lab:
"Don鈥檛 be afraid if you don鈥檛 know a lot. Even if you might know the material, you鈥檙e at the very least learning a different way of thinking about that area of linguistics. Even if you have studied research, it鈥檚 very different from learning it out of a book. It can feel overwhelming at first, but there鈥檚 nothing like doing it yourself to learn.鈥�