ORCID Profile
0000-0001-7735-573X
Current Organisation
Western Sydney University
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Laboratory Phonetics and Speech Science | Linguistics | Sensory Processes, Perception and Performance | Cognitive Science | Learning Sciences | Linguistic Processes (incl. Speech Production and Comprehension) | Developmental Psychology and Ageing
Expanding Knowledge in Psychology and Cognitive Sciences | Health Related to Ageing | Teaching and Instruction Technologies |
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 23-12-2016
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 10-2010
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 13-12-2022
Publisher: Acoustical Society of America (ASA)
Date: 10-2020
DOI: 10.1121/1.5147415
Abstract: Non-native tone production and imitation have been found to be phonetically deviant from native production for some discrete measures. However, it remains unresolved whether non-native imitation differs from native production in terms of the differentiation of tones in acoustic tone space. 32 native Mandarin speakers who had no experience with Thai imitated five Thai tones, and each participant produced 160 tokens in total under differing memory load and stimulus variability conditions to determine effects of cognitive demands. We calculated two tone differentiation indices (i.e., Index 1: tone differentiation within the tonal space Index 2: differentiation among tones, both as in Barry & Blamey, 2004) based on F0 onset and F0 offset for Thai tones and the non-native imitations of these Thai tones by Mandarin imitators. There was a significant memory load by vowel variability interaction for Index 1 and a main effect of talker variability and a three-way interaction (memory load “talker variability” vowel variability) for Index 2, suggesting that tone differentiation is affected by cognitive factors. Nonetheless, non-native tone imitations were not significantly different from native productions on either index, indicating that non-native imitation resembles native production in terms of tone differentiation in an onset-offset F0 space.
Publisher: JMIR Publications Inc.
Date: 24-02-2021
DOI: 10.2196/19478
Abstract: People living in rural and remote areas have poorer access to mental health services than those living in cities. They are also less likely to seek help because of self-stigma and entrenched stoic beliefs about help seeking as a sign of weakness. E-mental health services can span great distances to reach those in need and offer a degree of privacy and anonymity exceeding that of traditional face-to-face counseling and open up possibilities for identifying at-risk in iduals for targeted intervention. This scoping review maps the research that has explored text-based e-mental health counseling services and studies that have used language use patterns to predict mental health status. In doing so, one of the aims was to determine whether text-based counseling services have the potential to circumvent the barriers faced by clients in rural and remote communities using technology and whether text-based communications, in particular, can be used to identify in iduals at risk of psychological distress or self-harm. We conducted a comprehensive electronic literature search of PsycINFO, PubMed, ERIC, and Web of Science databases for articles published in English through November 2020. Of the 9134 articles screened, 70 met the eligibility criteria and were included in the review. There is preliminary evidence to suggest that text-based, real-time communication with a qualified therapist is an effective form of e-mental health service delivery, particularly for in iduals concerned with stigma and confidentiality. There is also converging evidence that text-based communications that have been analyzed using computational linguistic techniques can be used to accurately predict progress during treatment and identify in iduals at risk of serious mental health conditions and suicide. This review reveals a clear need for intensified research into the extent to which text-based counseling (and predictive models using modern computational linguistics tools) may help deliver mental health treatments to underserved groups such as regional communities, identify at-risk in iduals for targeted intervention, and predict progress during treatment. Such approaches have implications for policy development to improve intervention accessibility in at-risk and underserved populations.
Publisher: ISCA
Date: 20-08-2017
Publisher: JMIR Publications Inc.
Date: 19-04-2020
Abstract: eople living in rural and remote areas have poorer access to mental health services than those living in cities. They are also less likely to seek help because of self-stigma and entrenched stoic beliefs about help seeking as a sign of weakness. E-mental health services can span great distances to reach those in need and offer a degree of privacy and anonymity exceeding that of traditional face-to-face counseling and open up possibilities for identifying at-risk in iduals for targeted intervention. his scoping review maps the research that has explored text-based e-mental health counseling services and studies that have used language use patterns to predict mental health status. In doing so, one of the aims was to determine whether text-based counseling services have the potential to circumvent the barriers faced by clients in rural and remote communities using technology and whether text-based communications, in particular, can be used to identify in iduals at risk of psychological distress or self-harm. e conducted a comprehensive electronic literature search of PsycINFO, PubMed, ERIC, and Web of Science databases for articles published in English through November 2020. f the 9134 articles screened, 70 met the eligibility criteria and were included in the review. There is preliminary evidence to suggest that text-based, real-time communication with a qualified therapist is an effective form of e-mental health service delivery, particularly for in iduals concerned with stigma and confidentiality. There is also converging evidence that text-based communications that have been analyzed using computational linguistic techniques can be used to accurately predict progress during treatment and identify in iduals at risk of serious mental health conditions and suicide. his review reveals a clear need for intensified research into the extent to which text-based counseling (and predictive models using modern computational linguistics tools) may help deliver mental health treatments to underserved groups such as regional communities, identify at-risk in iduals for targeted intervention, and predict progress during treatment. Such approaches have implications for policy development to improve intervention accessibility in at-risk and underserved populations. >
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 07-2012
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 08-07-2016
Publisher: ISCA
Date: 25-05-2020
Publisher: Acoustical Society of America (ASA)
Date: 04-2013
DOI: 10.1121/1.4792358
Abstract: Monolingual listeners are constrained by native language experience when categorizing and discriminating unfamiliar non-native contrasts. Are early bilinguals constrained in the same way by their two languages, or do they possess an advantage? Greek–English bilinguals in either Greek or English language mode were compared to monolinguals on categorization and discrimination of Ma'di stop-voicing distinctions that are non-native to both languages. As predicted, English monolinguals categorized Ma'di prevoiced plosive and implosive stops and the coronal voiceless stop as English voiced stops. The Greek monolinguals categorized the Ma'di short-lag voiceless stops as Greek voiceless stops, and the prevoiced implosive stops and the coronal prevoiced stop as Greek voiced stops. Ma'di prenasalized stops were uncategorized. Greek monolinguals discriminated the non-native voiced-voiceless contrasts very well, whereas the English monolinguals did poorly. Bilinguals were given all oral and written instructions either in English or in Greek (language mode manipulation). Each language mode subgroup categorized Ma'di stop-voicing comparably to the corresponding monolingual group. However, the bilinguals’ discrimination was unaffected by language mode: both subgroups performed intermediate to the monolinguals for the prevoiced-voiceless contrast. Thus, bilinguals do not possess an advantage for unfamiliar non-native contrasts, but are nonetheless uniquely configured language users, differing from either monolingual group.
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 23-01-2018
Publisher: JMIR Publications Inc.
Date: 21-06-2022
DOI: 10.2196/33036
Abstract: Australians living in rural and remote areas are at elevated risk of mental health problems and must overcome barriers to help seeking, such as poor access, stigma, and entrenched stoicism. e-Mental health services circumvent such barriers using technology, and text-based services are particularly well suited to clients concerned with privacy and self-presentation. They allow the client to reflect on the therapy session after it has ended as the chat log is stored on their device. The text also offers researchers an opportunity to analyze language use patterns and explore how these relate to mental health status. In this project, we investigated whether computational linguistic techniques can be applied to text-based communications with the goal of identifying a client’s mental health status. Client-therapist text messages were analyzed using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count tool. We examined whether the resulting word counts related to the participants’ presenting problems or their self-ratings of mental health at the completion of counseling. The results confirmed that word use patterns could be used to differentiate whether a client had one of the top 3 presenting problems (depression, anxiety, or stress) and, prospectively, to predict their self-rated mental health after counseling had been completed. These findings suggest that language use patterns are useful for both researchers and clinicians trying to identify in iduals at risk of mental health problems, with potential applications in screening and targeted intervention.
Publisher: Acoustical Society of America (ASA)
Date: 2016
DOI: 10.1121/1.4939736
Abstract: Learning to distinguish nonnative words that differ in a critical phonetic feature can be difficult. Speech training studies typically employ methods that explicitly direct the learner's attention to the relevant nonnative feature to be learned. However, studies on vision have demonstrated that perceptual learning may occur implicitly, by exposing learners to stimulus features, even if they are irrelevant to the task, and it has recently been suggested that this task-irrelevant perceptual learning framework also applies to speech. In this study, subjects took part in a seven-day training regimen to learn to distinguish one of two nonnative features, namely, voice onset time or lexical tone, using explicit training methods consistent with most speech training studies. Critically, half of the subjects were exposed to stimuli that varied not only in the relevant feature, but in the irrelevant feature as well. The results showed that subjects who were trained with stimuli that varied in the relevant feature and held the irrelevant feature constant achieved the best learning outcomes. Varying both features hindered learning and generalization to new stimuli.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 05-07-2022
DOI: 10.1002/AUR.2778
Abstract: The automatic retuning of phoneme categories to better adapt to the speech of a novel talker has been extensively documented across various (neurotypical) populations, including both adults and children. However, no studies have examined auditory perceptual learning effects in populations atypical in perceptual, social, and language processing for communication, such as populations with autism. Employing a classic lexically‐guided perceptual learning paradigm, the present study investigated perceptual learning effects in Australian English autistic and non‐autistic adults. The findings revealed that automatic attunement to existing phoneme categories was not activated in the autistic group in the same manner as for non‐autistic control subjects. Specifically, autistic adults were able to both successfully discern lexical items and to categorize speech sounds however, they did not show effects of perceptual retuning to talkers. These findings may have implications for the application of current sensory theories (e.g., Bayesian decision theory) to speech and language processing by autistic in iduals. Lexically guided perceptual learning assists in the disambiguation of speech from a novel talker. The present study established that while Australian English autistic adult listeners were able to successfully discern lexical items and categorize speech sounds in their native language, perceptual flexibility in updating speaker‐specific phonemic knowledge when exposed to a novel talker was not available. Implications for speech and language processing by autistic in iduals as well as current sensory theories are discussed.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 21-07-2022
DOI: 10.1038/S41597-022-01552-7
Abstract: The growing interdisciplinary research field of psycholinguistics is in constant need of new and up-to-date tools which will allow researchers to answer complex questions, but also expand on languages other than English, which dominates the field. One type of such tools are picture datasets which provide naming norms for everyday objects. However, existing databases tend to be small in terms of the number of items they include, and have also been normed in a limited number of languages, despite the recent boom in multilingualism research. In this paper we present the Multilingual Picture (Multipic) database, containing naming norms and familiarity scores for 500 coloured pictures, in thirty-two languages or language varieties from around the world. The data was validated with standard methods that have been used for existing picture datasets. This is the first dataset to provide naming norms, and translation equivalents, for such a variety of languages as such, it will be of particular value to psycholinguists and other interested researchers. The dataset has been made freely available.
Publisher: American Speech Language Hearing Association
Date: 06-2015
DOI: 10.1044/2015_JSLHR-S-14-0259
Abstract: This study systematically examined the role of intensified exposure to a second language on accommodating talker variability. English native listeners ( n = 37) were compared with Mandarin listeners who had either lived in the United States for an extended period of time ( n = 33) or had lived only in China ( n = 44). Listeners responded to target words in an English word-monitoring task in which sequences of words were randomized. Half of the sequences were spoken by a single talker and the other half by multiple talkers. Mandarin listeners living in China were slower and less accurate than both English listeners and Mandarin listeners living in the United States. Mandarin listeners living in the United States were less accurate than English natives only in the more cognitively demanding mixed-talker condition. Mixed-talker speech affects processing in native and nonnative listeners alike, although the decrement is larger in nonnatives and further exaggerated in less proficient listeners. Language immersion improves listeners' ability to resolve talker variability, and this suggests that immersion may automatize nonnative processing, freeing cognitive resources that may play a crucial role in speech perception. These results lend support to the active control model of speech perception.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 29-08-2019
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 12-11-2014
DOI: 10.1017/S1366728914000777
Abstract: Numerous factors are thought to be advantageous for non-native language learning although they are typically investigated in isolation, and the interaction between them is not understood. Firstly, bilinguals are claimed to acquire a third language easier than monolinguals acquire a second. Secondly, closely related languages may be easier to learn. Thirdly, certain phonetic features could be universally more difficult to acquire. We tested these hypotheses used as explanations by having adults learn vocabularies that differentiated words using foreign phonetic contrasts. In Experiment 1, Mandarin–English bilinguals outlearned English monolinguals, and the Mandarin-like (retroflex) artificial language was better learned than the English-like (fricative voicing). In Experiment 2, bilinguals again outlearned English monolinguals for the Mandarin-like artificial language. However, only Korean–English bilinguals showed an advantage for the more difficult Korean-like (lenition) language. Bilinguals, relative to monolinguals, show a general advantage when learning ‘easy’ contrasts, but phonetic similarity to the native language is useful for learning universally ‘difficult’ contrasts.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2023
Publisher: Annual Reviews
Date: 14-01-2019
DOI: 10.1146/ANNUREV-LINGUISTICS-011718-011820
Abstract: Bilingualism was once thought to result in cognitive disadvantages, but research in recent decades has demonstrated that experience with two (or more) languages confers a bilingual advantage in executive functions and may delay the incidence of Alzheimer's disease. However, conflicting evidence has emerged leading to questions concerning the robustness of the bilingual advantage for both executive functions and dementia incidence. Some investigators have failed to find evidence of a bilingual advantage others have suggested that bilingual advantages may be entirely spurious, while proponents of the advantage case have continued to defend it. A heated debate has ensued, and the field has now reached an impasse. This review critically examines evidence for and against the bilingual advantage in executive functions, cognitive aging, and brain plasticity, before outlining how future research could shed light on this debate and advance knowledge of how experience with multiple languages affects cognition and the brain.
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 15-12-2017
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 27-04-2022
Abstract: As many distributional learning (DL) studies have shown, adult listeners can achieve discrimination of a difficult non-native contrast after a short repetitive exposure to tokens falling at the extremes of that contrast. Such studies have shown using behavioural methods that a short distributional training can induce perceptual learning of vowel and consonant contrasts. However, much less is known about the neurological correlates of DL, and few studies have examined non-native lexical tone contrasts. Here, Australian-English speakers underwent DL training on a Mandarin tone contrast using behavioural (discrimination, identification) and neural (oddball-EEG) tasks, with listeners hearing either a bimodal or a unimodal distribution. Behavioural results show that listeners learned to discriminate tones after both unimodal and bimodal training while EEG responses revealed more learning for listeners exposed to the bimodal distribution. Thus, perceptual learning through exposure to brief sound distributions (a) extends to non-native tonal contrasts, and (b) is sensitive to task, phonetic distance, and acoustic cue-weighting. Our findings have implications for models of how auditory and phonetic constraints influence speech learning.
Publisher: ISCA
Date: 15-09-2019
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 06-01-2014
DOI: 10.1002/DEV.21195
Abstract: The perceptual assimilation model (PAM Best, C. T. [1995]. A direct realist view of cross-language speech perception. In W. Strange (Ed.), Speech perception and linguistic experience: Issues in cross-language research (pp. 171-204). Baltimore, MD: York Press.) accounts for developmental patterns of speech contrast discrimination by proposing that infants shift from untuned phonetic perception at 6 months to natively tuned perceptual assimilation at 11-12 months, but the model does not predict initial discrimination differences among contrasts. To address that issue, we evaluated the Articulatory Organ Hypothesis, which posits that consonants produced using different articulatory organs are initially easier to discriminate than those produced with the same articulatory organ. We tested English-learning 6- and 11-month-olds' discrimination of voiceless fricative place contrasts from Nuu-Chah-Nulth (non-native) and English (native), with one within-organ and one between-organ contrast from each language. Both native and non-native contrasts were discriminated across age, suggesting that articulatory-organ differences do not influence perception of speech contrasts by young infants. The results highlight the fact that a decline in discrimination for non-native contrasts does not always occur over age.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 12-11-2014
DOI: 10.1017/S0142716414000514
Abstract: The mechanisms that allow for both language-specific and universal constraints in language development are not fully understood. According to the rhythm detection hypothesis, sensitivity to rhythm is the underlying mechanism that is fundamental to language development. Support from a number of Western languages, as well as Mandarin, has led to the proposal that rhythm detection may provide a language-universal account of language development. However, claims of universality may be premature because most research has addressed reading (rather than language) development, only a small number of languages have been investigated, and pitch is a better predictor of reading than rhythm in Mandarin children. Therefore, we examined language development using a narrative story-retelling task in children who speak Cantonese (a more complex tone inventory than Mandarin) and also assessed temporal and pitch-based auditory abilities to consider whether temporal processing drives development in a tone language. Both temporal and pitch abilities correlated with language development, but only pitch explained unique variance in language after age. The findings support the role of basic auditory processing mechanisms in language development, but they extend beyond the rhythm detection hypothesis by demonstrating that the fundamental cues for development are dependent on the specific processing demands of each language, rather than being universal.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 11-2020
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 11-2023
Publisher: JMIR Publications Inc.
Date: 19-08-2021
Abstract: ustralians living in rural and remote areas are at elevated risk of mental health problems and must overcome barriers to help seeking, such as poor access, stigma, and entrenched stoicism. e-Mental health services circumvent such barriers using technology, and text-based services are particularly well suited to clients concerned with privacy and self-presentation. They allow the client to reflect on the therapy session after it has ended as the chat log is stored on their device. The text also offers researchers an opportunity to analyze language use patterns and explore how these relate to mental health status. n this project, we investigated whether computational linguistic techniques can be applied to text-based communications with the goal of identifying a client’s mental health status. lient-therapist text messages were analyzed using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count tool. We examined whether the resulting word counts related to the participants’ presenting problems or their self-ratings of mental health at the completion of counseling. he results confirmed that word use patterns could be used to differentiate whether a client had one of the top 3 presenting problems (depression, anxiety, or stress) and, prospectively, to predict their self-rated mental health after counseling had been completed. hese findings suggest that language use patterns are useful for both researchers and clinicians trying to identify in iduals at risk of mental health problems, with potential applications in screening and targeted intervention.
Publisher: American Speech Language Hearing Association
Date: 15-07-2019
DOI: 10.1044/2019_JSLHR-L-18-0321
Abstract: We report a preliminary study that prospectively tests the potential cognitive enhancing effect of foreign language (FL) learning in older adults with no clear signs of cognitive decline beyond what is age typical. Because language learning engages a large brain network that overlaps with the network of cognitive aging, we hypothesized that learning a new language later in life would be beneficial. Older adults were randomly assigned to 3 training groups: FL, games, and music appreciation. All were trained predominately by a computer-based program for 6 months, and their cognitive abilities were tested before, immediately after, and 3 months after training. FL and games, but not music appreciation, improved overall cognitive abilities that were maintained at 3 months after training. This is the 1st randomized control study providing preliminary support for the cognitive benefits of FL learning.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2018
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 10-2011
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 12-2013
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Date: 2021
Publisher: JMIR Publications Inc.
Date: 29-05-2023
Abstract: onstruction and nursing are critical industries within New South Wales and Australia. Though both careers involve physically and mentally demanding work, the risks to workers during the pandemic are not well understood. In prior work, we have shown that nurses (both younger and older) were more likely to suffer the ill effects of burnout and stress than construction workers. This seems likely linked to accelerated work demands and increased pressure on nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Here, we subjected a large social media dataset to a series of advanced natural language processing techniques in order to explore indicators of mental status across industries before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. his social media analysis fills an important knowledge gap by comparing the social media posts of younger and older construction workers and nurses in order to obtain an insight into any potential risks to their mental health due to work health and safety issues. e analysed 1,505,638 tweets published on Twitter by younger and older ( vs. years of age) construction workers and nurses. The study period spanned 54 months, from January 2018 to June 2022, which equates to approximately 27 months before and 27 months after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic on 11 March 2020. The tweets were analysed using big data analytics and computational linguistic analyses. ext analyses revealed that nurses made greater use of hashtags and keywords (both monograms and bigrams) associated with burnout, health issues, and mental health compared to construction workers. COVID also had a huge effect on nurses, and this was especially pronounced for younger nurses. LIWC analyses showed that posts about health and wellbeing contained more first-person singular pronouns and affect words, and health-related tweets contained more affect words. Sentiment analyses revealed that, overall, nurses had a higher proportion of positive sentiment in their tweets than construction workers. However, this changed markedly in early 2020 as the positive and negative sentiment crossed over in the months leading up to the World Health Organization’s declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic. Since that time, negative sentiment dominated the tweets of nurses. No such crossover was observed in construction. he social media analysis revealed that younger nurses had language use patterns consistent with someone suffering the ill effects of burnout and stress. Older construction workers had more negative sentiment than young workers, who were more focused on communicating about social and recreational activities rather than work matters.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 04-2021
Start Date: 06-2019
End Date: 12-2024
Amount: $421,000.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityStart Date: 01-2015
End Date: 06-2018
Amount: $364,536.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded Activity