Haskins Laboratories
Encyclopedia
Haskins Laboratories http://www.haskins.yale.edu is an independent, international, multidisciplinary community of researchers conducting basic research
on spoken and written language
. Founded in 1935 and located in New Haven, Connecticut
since 1970, Haskins Laboratories is a private, non-profit research institute with a primary focus on speech, language
and reading, and their biological
basis. Haskins Laboratories has a long history of technological
and theoretical
innovation, from creating the rules for speech synthesis
and the first working prototype of a reading machine
for the blind
to developing the landmark concept of phonemic awareness
as a critical preparation for learning to read.
http://www.haskins.yale.edu/staff/cph.html, Franklin S. Cooper
http://www.haskins.yale.edu/staff/fsc.html, Alvin Liberman
http://www.haskins.yale.edu/staff/aml.html, Seymour Hutner
http://appserv.pace.edu/execute/page.cfm?doc_id=18832 and Luigi Provasoli http://www.jstor.org/view/00243590/dm995012/99p0218l/0. This history focuses on the research program of the main division of Haskins Laboratories that, since the 1940s, has been most well known for its work in the areas of speech, language and reading.
established Haskins Laboratories in 1935. It was originally affiliated with Harvard University
, MIT, and Union College
in Schenectady, NY. Caryl Haskins conducted research in microbiology
, radiation
physics
, and other fields in Cambridge, MA and Schenectady. In 1939 the Laboratories moved its center to New York City
. Seymour Hutner joined the staff to set up a research program in microbiology
, genetics
, and nutrition
. The descendant of this programhttp://appserv.pace.edu/execute/page.cfm?doc_id=18327 is now part of Pace University
in New York.
, under Vannevar Bush
asked Haskins Laboratories to evaluate and develop technologies for assisting blinded World War II
veterans. Experimental psychologist Alvin Liberman
joined the Laboratories to assist in developing a "sound alphabet" to represent the letters in a text for use in a reading machine for the blind. Luigi Provasoli joined the Laboratories to set up a research program in marine biology
. The program in marine biology moved to Yale University
in 1970 and disbanded with Provasoli's retirement in 1978.
invented the pattern playback
http://cobweb.ecn.purdue.edu/~malcolm/interval/1994-036/http://www.haskins.yale.edu/featured/patplay.html, a machine that converts pictures of the acoustic patterns of speech back into sound. With this device, Alvin Liberman
, Cooper, and Pierre Delattre http://www.mindspring.com/~ssshp/ssshp_cd/ss_hask.htm (later joined by Katherine Safford Harris
http://www.jstor.org/view/00978507/ap020297/02a00600/0, Leigh Lisker
and others), discovered the acoustic cues for the perception of phonetic segments (consonants and vowels). Liberman and colleagues proposed a motor theory of speech perception
to resolve the acoustic complexity: they hypothesized that we perceive speech by tapping into a biological specialization, a speech module, that contains knowledge of the acoustic consequences of articulation. Liberman, aided by Frances Ingemannhttp://linguistlist.org/people/personal/get-personal-page2.cfm?PersonID=4996 and others, organized the results of the work on speech cues into a groundbreaking set of rules for speech synthesis
by the Pattern Playbackhttp://www.haskins.yale.edu/featured/patplay.html.
and Katherine Safford Harris
, working with Peter MacNeilage http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?prog=normal&id=JASMAN000035000011001911000004&idtype=cvips&gifs=yes, were the first researchers in the U.S. to use electromyographic
techniques, pioneered at the University of Tokyo
, to study the neuromuscular organization of speech. Leigh Lisker
and Arthur Abramson
http://www.haskins.yale.edu/staff/abramson.html looked for simplification at the level of articulatory action in the voicing of certain contrasting consonants. They showed that many acoustic properties of voicing contrasts arise from variations in voice onset time
, the relative phasing of the onset of vocal cord vibration and the end of a consonant. Their work has been widely replicated and elaborated, here and abroad, over the following decades. Donald Shankweiler
http://www.haskins.yale.edu/staff/shankweiler.html and Michael Studdert-Kennedy
http://www.haskins.yale.edu/staff/msk.html used a dichotic listening
technique (presenting different nonsense syllables simultaneously to opposite ears) to demonstrate the dissociation of phonetic (speech) and auditory
(nonspeech) perception by finding that phonetic structure devoid of meaning is an integral part of language, typically processed in the left cerebral hemisphere
. Liberman, Cooper, Shankweiler, and Studdert-Kennedy summarized and interpreted fifteen years of research in "Perception of the Speech Code," still among the most cited papers in the speech literature. It set the agenda for many years of research at Haskins and elsewhere by describing speech as a code in which speakers overlap (or coarticulate) segments to form syllables. Researchers at Haskins connected their first computer to a speech synthesizer designed by the Laboratories' engineers. Ignatius Mattingly
http://www.haskins.yale.edu/staff/IGM.html, with British collaborators, John N. Holmes http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0748408576 and J.N. Shearme http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?prog=normal&id=JASMAN000035000011001911000004&idtype=cvips&gifs=yes, adapted the Pattern playback
rules to write the first computer program for synthesizing continuous speech from a phonetically spelled input. A further step toward a reading machine
for the blind combined Mattingly's program with an automatic look-up procedure for converting alphabetic text into strings of phonetic symbols.
and entered into affiliation agreements with Yale University
and the University of Connecticut
. Isabelle Liberman
, Donald Shankweiler, and Alvin Liberman
teamed up with Ignatius Mattingly
to study the relationship between speech perception and reading, a topic implicit in the Laboratories' research program since its inception. They developed the concept of phonemic awareness
, the knowledge that would-be readers must have of the phonemic structure of their language in order to be able to read. Under the broad rubric of the "alphabetic principle
," this is the core of the Laboratories' present program of reading pedagogy. Patrick Nye http://www.haskins.yale.edu/staff/nye.html joined the Laboratories to lead a team working on the reading machine
for the blind. The project culminated when the addition of an optical character recognizer
allowed investigators to assemble the first automatic text-to-speech reading machine. By the end of the decade this technology had advanced to the point where commercial concerns assumed the task of designing and manufacturing reading machines for the blindhttp://www.kurzweiltech.com/kesi.html.
In 1973 Franklin S. Cooper
was selected to form a panel of six experts charged with investigating the famous 18-minute gap in the White House office tapes
of President Richard Nixon
related to the Watergate scandal
http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/morgue/community_pulse/1999_Mar_10.LEADOBIT.html
Building on earlier work, Philip Rubin
developed the sinewave synthesis
program, which was then used by Robert Remez
, Rubin, and colleagues to show that listeners can perceive continuous speech without traditional speech cues from a pattern of sinewaves that track the changing resonances of the vocal tract
. This paved the way for a view of speech as a dynamic pattern of trajectories through articulatory-acoustic space. Philip Rubin
and colleagues developed Paul Mermelstein's anatomically simplied vocal tract
model http://www.mindspring.com/~ssshp/ssshp_cd/ss_btl2.htm, originally worked on at Bell Laboratories, into the first articulatory synthesizer http://www.haskins.yale.edu/facilities/asy.html that can be controlled in a physically meaningful way and used for interactive experiments.
systems supported the controversial hypothesis that all reading necessarily activates the phonological form of a word before, or at the same time, as its meaning. Work included experiments by George Lukatela http://www.haskins.yale.edu/STAFF/lukatela.html, Michael Turvey
http://www.sp.uconn.edu/~wwwpsyc/Faculty/Turvey/Turvey.html, Leonard Katz http://web.uconn.edu/psychology/people/Faculty/Katz/Katz.html, Ram Frost http://micro5.mscc.huji.ac.il/~frost/, Laurie Feldman http://www.albany.edu/psy/feldman.html and Shlomo Bentin http://pissaro.soc.huji.ac.il/Shlomo/people/shlomo.html, in a variety of languages. Various researchers developed compatible theoretical accounts of speech production
, speech perception
and phonological knowledge. Carol Fowler
http://www.haskins.yale.edu/staff/caf.html proposed a direct realism theory of speech perception: listeners perceive gestures not by means of a specialized decoder, as in the motor theory, but because information in the acoustic signal specifies the gestures that form it. J. A. Scott Kelso
and colleagues demonstrated functional synergies in speech gestures experimentally. Elliot Saltzman http://www.haskins.yale.edu/staff/saltzman.html developed a dynamical systems theory of synergetic
action and implemented the theory as a working model of speech production. Linguists
Catherine Browman
http://www.haskins.yale.edu/staff/browman.html and Louis Goldstein
http://www.yale.edu/linguist/faculty/louis.html developed the theory of articulatory phonology
http://www.haskins.yale.edu/research/gestural.html, in which gestures are the basic units of both phonetic action and phonological knowledge. Articulatory phonology, the task dynamic model, and the articulatory synthesis model are combined into a gestural computational model of speech production. http://www.haskins.yale.edu/research/gestural.html Saltzman and Rubin started the IS group to explore cutting edge developments in science and technology and foster collaboration across institutions and disciplines. The group, not formally affiliated with Haskins Laboratories, continues to meet.
, Frederica Bell-Bertihttp://www.stjohns.edu/academics/graduate/liberalarts/departments/speech and colleagues studied the phasing and cohesion of articulatory speech gestures. Kenneth Pughhttp://www.yalereadingcenter.com/ was among the first scientists to use functional magnetic resonance imaging
(fMRI) to reveal brain activity associated with reading and reading disabilities. Pugh, Donald Shankweiler http://www.sp.uconn.edu/~wwwpsyc/Faculty/Shankweiler/Shankweiler.html, Weija Nihttp://www.csr.nih.gov/photodisplay/finalinter.aspx?id=1258&orgid=340010003&other=0, Einar Mencl http://www.haskins.yale.edu/staff/mencl.html, and colleagues developed novel applications of neuroimaging
to measure brain activity associated with understanding sentences. Philip Rubin
, Louis Goldstein
and Mark Tiedehttp://www.haskins.yale.edu/staff/tiede.html designed a radical revision of the articulatory synthesis model, known as CASY http://www.haskins.yale.edu/facilities/casy.html, the configurable articulatory synthesizer. This 3-dimensional model of the vocal tract
permits researchers to replicate MRI images of actual speakers. Douglas Whalen http://www.haskins.yale.edu/staff/whalen.html, Goldstein, Rubin and colleagues extended this work to study the relation between speech production and perception. http://www.haskins.yale.edu/newsrelease/A93-2006.html Donald Shankweiler
, Susan Brady http://www.uri.edu/artsci/psy/schpsy/Faculty.html http://www.haskins.yale.edu/staff/brady.html, Anne Fowler http://www.haskins.yale.edu/staff/fowlera.html, and others explored whether weak memory
and perception
in poor readers are tied specifically to phonological deficits. Evidence rejected broader cognitive deficits underlying reading difficulties and raised questions about impaired phonological representations in disabled readers.
in reading instruction for teachers of children in kindergarten through second grade. The Mastering Reading Instruction program http://www.haskins.yale.edu/mrin.html, which combines professional development with Haskins-trained mentors, was a continuation of ERS. David Ostry
http://www.psych.mcgill.ca/labs/mcl/David%20J_%20Ostry.htm and colleagues explored the neurological underpinning of motor control
using a robot arm to influence jaw
movement. Douglas Whalen
and Khalil Iskarous http://www.haskins.yale.edu/staff/iskarous.html pioneered the pairing of ultrasound
, used here to monitor articulators that cannot be seen, and Optotrakhttp://www.ndigital.com/certus.php, an opto-electronic position-tracking device, used here to monitor visible articulators. Donald Shankweiler
http://www.sp.uconn.edu/~wwwpsyc/Faculty/Shankweiler/Shankweiler.html and David Braze http://www.haskins.yale.edu/staff/braze.html developed an eye movement laboratory that combines eye tracking
data with brain activity measures for investigating reading processes in normal and disabled readers. In March 2005 Haskins Laboratories moved to a new state-of-the-art facility on George Street in New Haven. In 2008 Ken Pugh
of Yale University
was named President and Director of Research, succeeding Carol Fowler
who remains at Haskins as a Senior Advisor. In 2009 Haskins released its new Strategic Planhttp://www.haskins.yale.edu/StrategicPlan.html, which features new Birth-to-Five and Bilingualism initiatives.
Research
Research can be defined as the scientific search for knowledge, or as any systematic investigation, to establish novel facts, solve new or existing problems, prove new ideas, or develop new theories, usually using a scientific method...
on spoken and written language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
. Founded in 1935 and located in New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is the second-largest city in Connecticut and the sixth-largest in New England. According to the 2010 Census, New Haven's population increased by 5.0% between 2000 and 2010, a rate higher than that of the State of Connecticut, and higher than that of the state's five largest cities, and...
since 1970, Haskins Laboratories is a private, non-profit research institute with a primary focus on speech, language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
and reading, and their biological
Biological process
A biological process is a process of a living organism. Biological processes are made up of any number of chemical reactions or other events that results in a transformation....
basis. Haskins Laboratories has a long history of technological
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
and theoretical
Theory
The English word theory was derived from a technical term in Ancient Greek philosophy. The word theoria, , meant "a looking at, viewing, beholding", and referring to contemplation or speculation, as opposed to action...
innovation, from creating the rules for speech synthesis
Speech synthesis
Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or hardware...
and the first working prototype of a reading machine
Reading machine
A reading machine is a piece of Assistive Technology that allows blind people to access printed materials. It scans text, converts the image into text by means of optical character recognition and uses a speech synthesizer to read out what it has found....
for the blind
Blindness
Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness...
to developing the landmark concept of phonemic awareness
Phonemic awareness
Phonemic awareness is a subset of phonological awareness in which listeners are able to hear, identify and manipulate phonemes, the smallest units of sound that can differentiate meaning...
as a critical preparation for learning to read.
History
Scores of researchers have contributed to scientific breakthroughs at Haskins Laboratories since its founding. All of them are indebted to the pioneering work and leadership of Caryl Parker HaskinsCaryl Parker Haskins
Caryl Parker Haskins was a scientist, author, inventor, philanthropist, governmental adviser and pioneering entomologist in the study of ant biology . In the 1930s he was inspired by Alfred Lee Loomis to establish his own research facility. Along with Franklin S. Cooper, he founded the Haskins...
http://www.haskins.yale.edu/staff/cph.html, Franklin S. Cooper
Franklin S. Cooper
Franklin Seaney Cooper was an American physicist and inventor who was a pioneer in speech research.-Biography:...
http://www.haskins.yale.edu/staff/fsc.html, Alvin Liberman
Alvin Liberman
Alvin Meyer Liberman was an American psychologist whose ideas set the agenda for fifty years of research in the psychology of speech perception and laid the groundwork for modern computer speech synthesis and the understanding of critical issues in cognitive science...
http://www.haskins.yale.edu/staff/aml.html, Seymour Hutner
Seymour Hutner
Seymour Herbert Hutner was a microbiologist specializing in the nutritional biochemistry of protists . Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1911, he obtained a bachelor’s degree from the City College of New York in 1931 and a Ph.D...
http://appserv.pace.edu/execute/page.cfm?doc_id=18832 and Luigi Provasoli http://www.jstor.org/view/00243590/dm995012/99p0218l/0. This history focuses on the research program of the main division of Haskins Laboratories that, since the 1940s, has been most well known for its work in the areas of speech, language and reading.
1930s
Caryl Haskins and Franklin S. CooperFranklin S. Cooper
Franklin Seaney Cooper was an American physicist and inventor who was a pioneer in speech research.-Biography:...
established Haskins Laboratories in 1935. It was originally affiliated with Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, MIT, and Union College
Union College
Union College is a private, non-denominational liberal arts college located in Schenectady, New York, United States. Founded in 1795, it was the first institution of higher learning chartered by the New York State Board of Regents. In the 19th century, it became the "Mother of Fraternities", as...
in Schenectady, NY. Caryl Haskins conducted research in microbiology
Microbiology
Microbiology is the study of microorganisms, which are defined as any microscopic organism that comprises either a single cell , cell clusters or no cell at all . This includes eukaryotes, such as fungi and protists, and prokaryotes...
, radiation
Radiation
In physics, radiation is a process in which energetic particles or energetic waves travel through a medium or space. There are two distinct types of radiation; ionizing and non-ionizing...
physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
, and other fields in Cambridge, MA and Schenectady. In 1939 the Laboratories moved its center to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. Seymour Hutner joined the staff to set up a research program in microbiology
Microbiology
Microbiology is the study of microorganisms, which are defined as any microscopic organism that comprises either a single cell , cell clusters or no cell at all . This includes eukaryotes, such as fungi and protists, and prokaryotes...
, genetics
Genetics
Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....
, and nutrition
Nutrition
Nutrition is the provision, to cells and organisms, of the materials necessary to support life. Many common health problems can be prevented or alleviated with a healthy diet....
. The descendant of this programhttp://appserv.pace.edu/execute/page.cfm?doc_id=18327 is now part of Pace University
Pace University
Pace University is an American private, co-educational, and comprehensive multi-campus university in the New York metropolitan area with campuses in New York City and Westchester County, New York.-Programs:...
in New York.
1940s
The U. S. Office of Scientific Research and DevelopmentOffice of Scientific Research and Development
The Office of Scientific Research and Development was an agency of the United States federal government created to coordinate scientific research for military purposes during World War II. Arrangements were made for its creation during May 1941, and it was created formally by on June 28, 1941...
, under Vannevar Bush
Vannevar Bush
Vannevar Bush was an American engineer and science administrator known for his work on analog computing, his political role in the development of the atomic bomb as a primary organizer of the Manhattan Project, the founding of Raytheon, and the idea of the memex, an adjustable microfilm viewer...
asked Haskins Laboratories to evaluate and develop technologies for assisting blinded World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
veterans. Experimental psychologist Alvin Liberman
Alvin Liberman
Alvin Meyer Liberman was an American psychologist whose ideas set the agenda for fifty years of research in the psychology of speech perception and laid the groundwork for modern computer speech synthesis and the understanding of critical issues in cognitive science...
joined the Laboratories to assist in developing a "sound alphabet" to represent the letters in a text for use in a reading machine for the blind. Luigi Provasoli joined the Laboratories to set up a research program in marine biology
Marine biology
Marine biology is the scientific study of organisms in the ocean or other marine or brackish bodies of water. Given that in biology many phyla, families and genera have some species that live in the sea and others that live on land, marine biology classifies species based on the environment rather...
. The program in marine biology moved to Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
in 1970 and disbanded with Provasoli's retirement in 1978.
1950s
Franklin S. CooperFranklin S. Cooper
Franklin Seaney Cooper was an American physicist and inventor who was a pioneer in speech research.-Biography:...
invented the pattern playback
Pattern playback
The Pattern playback is an early talking device that was built by Dr. Franklin S. Cooper and his colleagues, including John M. Borst and Caryl Haskins, at Haskins Laboratories in the late 1940s and completed in 1950. There were several different versions of this hardware device. Only one currently...
http://cobweb.ecn.purdue.edu/~malcolm/interval/1994-036/http://www.haskins.yale.edu/featured/patplay.html, a machine that converts pictures of the acoustic patterns of speech back into sound. With this device, Alvin Liberman
Alvin Liberman
Alvin Meyer Liberman was an American psychologist whose ideas set the agenda for fifty years of research in the psychology of speech perception and laid the groundwork for modern computer speech synthesis and the understanding of critical issues in cognitive science...
, Cooper, and Pierre Delattre http://www.mindspring.com/~ssshp/ssshp_cd/ss_hask.htm (later joined by Katherine Safford Harris
Katherine Safford Harris
Katherine S. Harris is a noted psychologist and speech scientist. She is Distinguished Professor Emerita in Speech and Hearing at the CUNY Graduate Center and a member of the Board of Directors of Haskins Laboratories. She is also the former President of the Acoustical Society of America and Vice...
http://www.jstor.org/view/00978507/ap020297/02a00600/0, Leigh Lisker
Leigh Lisker
Leigh Lisker was an eminent American linguist and phonetician. Most of his career was spent at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was a professor and then emeritus professor of linguistics. Dr. Lisker received his A.B. in 1941, with a major in German, his M.A. in 1946, and a Ph.D. in 1949 in...
and others), discovered the acoustic cues for the perception of phonetic segments (consonants and vowels). Liberman and colleagues proposed a motor theory of speech perception
Motor theory of speech perception
thumb|250px|right|When we hear [[speech|spoken words]] we sense that they are made of auditory [[sound]]s. The motor theory of speech perception argues that behind the sounds we hear are the intended movements of the [[vocal tract]] that [[pronunciation|pronounces]] them.The motor theory of speech...
to resolve the acoustic complexity: they hypothesized that we perceive speech by tapping into a biological specialization, a speech module, that contains knowledge of the acoustic consequences of articulation. Liberman, aided by Frances Ingemannhttp://linguistlist.org/people/personal/get-personal-page2.cfm?PersonID=4996 and others, organized the results of the work on speech cues into a groundbreaking set of rules for speech synthesis
Speech synthesis
Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or hardware...
by the Pattern Playbackhttp://www.haskins.yale.edu/featured/patplay.html.
1960s
Franklin S. CooperFranklin S. Cooper
Franklin Seaney Cooper was an American physicist and inventor who was a pioneer in speech research.-Biography:...
and Katherine Safford Harris
Katherine Safford Harris
Katherine S. Harris is a noted psychologist and speech scientist. She is Distinguished Professor Emerita in Speech and Hearing at the CUNY Graduate Center and a member of the Board of Directors of Haskins Laboratories. She is also the former President of the Acoustical Society of America and Vice...
, working with Peter MacNeilage http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?prog=normal&id=JASMAN000035000011001911000004&idtype=cvips&gifs=yes, were the first researchers in the U.S. to use electromyographic
Electromyography
Electromyography is a technique for evaluating and recording the electrical activity produced by skeletal muscles. EMG is performed using an instrument called an electromyograph, to produce a record called an electromyogram. An electromyograph detects the electrical potential generated by muscle...
techniques, pioneered at the University of Tokyo
University of Tokyo
, abbreviated as , is a major research university located in Tokyo, Japan. The University has 10 faculties with a total of around 30,000 students, 2,100 of whom are foreign. Its five campuses are in Hongō, Komaba, Kashiwa, Shirokane and Nakano. It is considered to be the most prestigious university...
, to study the neuromuscular organization of speech. Leigh Lisker
Leigh Lisker
Leigh Lisker was an eminent American linguist and phonetician. Most of his career was spent at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was a professor and then emeritus professor of linguistics. Dr. Lisker received his A.B. in 1941, with a major in German, his M.A. in 1946, and a Ph.D. in 1949 in...
and Arthur Abramson
Arthur S. Abramson
Arthur S. Abramson is an American linguist, phonetician, and speech scientist. He is a Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at the University of Connecticut , where he was the founding chair, and a Senior Scientist at Haskins Laboratories in New Haven, Connecticut. He is also a member of the Board of...
http://www.haskins.yale.edu/staff/abramson.html looked for simplification at the level of articulatory action in the voicing of certain contrasting consonants. They showed that many acoustic properties of voicing contrasts arise from variations in voice onset time
Voice onset time
In phonetics, voice onset time, commonly abbreviated VOT, is a feature of the production of stop consonants. It is defined as the length of time that passes between when a stop consonant is released and when voicing, the vibration of the vocal folds, or, according to the authors, periodicity begins...
, the relative phasing of the onset of vocal cord vibration and the end of a consonant. Their work has been widely replicated and elaborated, here and abroad, over the following decades. Donald Shankweiler
Donald Shankweiler
Donald P. Shankweiler is an eminent psychologist and cognitive scientist who has done pioneering work on the representation and processing of language in the brain...
http://www.haskins.yale.edu/staff/shankweiler.html and Michael Studdert-Kennedy
Michael Studdert-Kennedy
Michael Studdert-Kennedy is an eminent psychologist and speech scientist. He is well known for his contributions to studies of speech perception, the motor theory of speech perception, and the evolution of language, among other areas. He is a Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of...
http://www.haskins.yale.edu/staff/msk.html used a dichotic listening
Dichotic listening
In cognitive psychology, dichotic listening is a procedure commonly used to investigate selective attention in the auditory system. In dichotic listening, two different auditory stimuli are presented to the participant simultaneously, one to each ear, normally using a set of headphones...
technique (presenting different nonsense syllables simultaneously to opposite ears) to demonstrate the dissociation of phonetic (speech) and auditory
Hearing (sense)
Hearing is the ability to perceive sound by detecting vibrations through an organ such as the ear. It is one of the traditional five senses...
(nonspeech) perception by finding that phonetic structure devoid of meaning is an integral part of language, typically processed in the left cerebral hemisphere
Cerebral hemisphere
A cerebral hemisphere is one of the two regions of the eutherian brain that are delineated by the median plane, . The brain can thus be described as being divided into left and right cerebral hemispheres. Each of these hemispheres has an outer layer of grey matter called the cerebral cortex that is...
. Liberman, Cooper, Shankweiler, and Studdert-Kennedy summarized and interpreted fifteen years of research in "Perception of the Speech Code," still among the most cited papers in the speech literature. It set the agenda for many years of research at Haskins and elsewhere by describing speech as a code in which speakers overlap (or coarticulate) segments to form syllables. Researchers at Haskins connected their first computer to a speech synthesizer designed by the Laboratories' engineers. Ignatius Mattingly
Ignatius Mattingly
Ignatius G. Mattingly was a prominent American linguist and speech scientist. Prior to his academic career, he was an analyst for the National Security Agency from 1955-1966. He was a Lecturer and then Professor of Linguistics at the University of Connecticut from 1966-1996 and a researcher at...
http://www.haskins.yale.edu/staff/IGM.html, with British collaborators, John N. Holmes http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0748408576 and J.N. Shearme http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?prog=normal&id=JASMAN000035000011001911000004&idtype=cvips&gifs=yes, adapted the Pattern playback
Pattern playback
The Pattern playback is an early talking device that was built by Dr. Franklin S. Cooper and his colleagues, including John M. Borst and Caryl Haskins, at Haskins Laboratories in the late 1940s and completed in 1950. There were several different versions of this hardware device. Only one currently...
rules to write the first computer program for synthesizing continuous speech from a phonetically spelled input. A further step toward a reading machine
Reading machine
A reading machine is a piece of Assistive Technology that allows blind people to access printed materials. It scans text, converts the image into text by means of optical character recognition and uses a speech synthesizer to read out what it has found....
for the blind combined Mattingly's program with an automatic look-up procedure for converting alphabetic text into strings of phonetic symbols.
1970s
In 1970 Haskins Laboratories moved to New Haven, ConnecticutNew Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is the second-largest city in Connecticut and the sixth-largest in New England. According to the 2010 Census, New Haven's population increased by 5.0% between 2000 and 2010, a rate higher than that of the State of Connecticut, and higher than that of the state's five largest cities, and...
and entered into affiliation agreements with Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
and the University of Connecticut
University of Connecticut
The admission rate to the University of Connecticut is about 50% and has been steadily decreasing, with about 28,000 prospective students applying for admission to the freshman class in recent years. Approximately 40,000 prospective students tour the main campus in Storrs annually...
. Isabelle Liberman
Isabelle Liberman
Isabelle Yoffe Liberman was an American psychologist, born in Latvia, who was an expert on reading disabilities, including dyslexia. Isabelle Liberman received her bachelor's degree from Vassar College and her doctorate from Yale University...
, Donald Shankweiler, and Alvin Liberman
Alvin Liberman
Alvin Meyer Liberman was an American psychologist whose ideas set the agenda for fifty years of research in the psychology of speech perception and laid the groundwork for modern computer speech synthesis and the understanding of critical issues in cognitive science...
teamed up with Ignatius Mattingly
Ignatius Mattingly
Ignatius G. Mattingly was a prominent American linguist and speech scientist. Prior to his academic career, he was an analyst for the National Security Agency from 1955-1966. He was a Lecturer and then Professor of Linguistics at the University of Connecticut from 1966-1996 and a researcher at...
to study the relationship between speech perception and reading, a topic implicit in the Laboratories' research program since its inception. They developed the concept of phonemic awareness
Phonemic awareness
Phonemic awareness is a subset of phonological awareness in which listeners are able to hear, identify and manipulate phonemes, the smallest units of sound that can differentiate meaning...
, the knowledge that would-be readers must have of the phonemic structure of their language in order to be able to read. Under the broad rubric of the "alphabetic principle
Alphabetic principle
According to the alphabetic principle, letters and combinations of letters are the symbols used to represent the speech sounds of a language based on systematic and predictable relationships between written letters, symbols, and spoken words...
," this is the core of the Laboratories' present program of reading pedagogy. Patrick Nye http://www.haskins.yale.edu/staff/nye.html joined the Laboratories to lead a team working on the reading machine
Reading machine
A reading machine is a piece of Assistive Technology that allows blind people to access printed materials. It scans text, converts the image into text by means of optical character recognition and uses a speech synthesizer to read out what it has found....
for the blind. The project culminated when the addition of an optical character recognizer
Optical character recognition
Optical character recognition, usually abbreviated to OCR, is the mechanical or electronic translation of scanned images of handwritten, typewritten or printed text into machine-encoded text. It is widely used to convert books and documents into electronic files, to computerize a record-keeping...
allowed investigators to assemble the first automatic text-to-speech reading machine. By the end of the decade this technology had advanced to the point where commercial concerns assumed the task of designing and manufacturing reading machines for the blindhttp://www.kurzweiltech.com/kesi.html.
In 1973 Franklin S. Cooper
Franklin S. Cooper
Franklin Seaney Cooper was an American physicist and inventor who was a pioneer in speech research.-Biography:...
was selected to form a panel of six experts charged with investigating the famous 18-minute gap in the White House office tapes
Watergate tapes
The Watergate tapes, a subset of the Nixon tapes, are a collection of recordings of conversations between Richard Nixon and his fellow conspirators plotting a break in to the Watergate Hotel. U.S. President Richard Nixon and various White House staff started communicating on February 1971 and...
of President Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
related to the Watergate scandal
Watergate scandal
The Watergate scandal was a political scandal during the 1970s in the United States resulting from the break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., and the Nixon administration's attempted cover-up of its involvement...
http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/morgue/community_pulse/1999_Mar_10.LEADOBIT.html
Building on earlier work, Philip Rubin
Philip Rubin
Philip E. Rubin is an American cognitive scientist and technologist who since 2003 has been the Chief Executive Officer and a Senior Scientist at Haskins Laboratories in New Haven, Connecticut...
developed the sinewave synthesis
Sinewave synthesis
Sinewave synthesis, or sine wave speech, is a technique for synthesizing speech by replacing the formants with pure tone whistles. The first sinewave synthesis program for the automatic creation of stimuli for perceptual experiments was developed by Philip Rubin at Haskins Laboratories in the 1970s...
program, which was then used by Robert Remez
Robert Remez
Robert Remez is an American experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, theoretician and teacher. He is currently a Professor of Psychology at Barnard College, Columbia University and Chair of the Columbia University Seminar on Language & Cognition . His teaching focuses on the relationships...
, Rubin, and colleagues to show that listeners can perceive continuous speech without traditional speech cues from a pattern of sinewaves that track the changing resonances of the vocal tract
Vocal tract
The vocal tract is the cavity in human beings and in animals where sound that is produced at the sound source is filtered....
. This paved the way for a view of speech as a dynamic pattern of trajectories through articulatory-acoustic space. Philip Rubin
Philip Rubin
Philip E. Rubin is an American cognitive scientist and technologist who since 2003 has been the Chief Executive Officer and a Senior Scientist at Haskins Laboratories in New Haven, Connecticut...
and colleagues developed Paul Mermelstein's anatomically simplied vocal tract
Vocal tract
The vocal tract is the cavity in human beings and in animals where sound that is produced at the sound source is filtered....
model http://www.mindspring.com/~ssshp/ssshp_cd/ss_btl2.htm, originally worked on at Bell Laboratories, into the first articulatory synthesizer http://www.haskins.yale.edu/facilities/asy.html that can be controlled in a physically meaningful way and used for interactive experiments.
1980s
Studies of different writingWriting
Writing is the representation of language in a textual medium through the use of a set of signs or symbols . It is distinguished from illustration, such as cave drawing and painting, and non-symbolic preservation of language via non-textual media, such as magnetic tape audio.Writing most likely...
systems supported the controversial hypothesis that all reading necessarily activates the phonological form of a word before, or at the same time, as its meaning. Work included experiments by George Lukatela http://www.haskins.yale.edu/STAFF/lukatela.html, Michael Turvey
Michael Turvey
Michael T. Turvey is the Board of Trustees' Distinguished Professor of Experimental Psychology at the University of Connecticut and a Senior Scientist at Haskins Laboratories in New Haven, Connecticut. He is best known for his pioneering work in ecological psychology and in applying dynamic systems...
http://www.sp.uconn.edu/~wwwpsyc/Faculty/Turvey/Turvey.html, Leonard Katz http://web.uconn.edu/psychology/people/Faculty/Katz/Katz.html, Ram Frost http://micro5.mscc.huji.ac.il/~frost/, Laurie Feldman http://www.albany.edu/psy/feldman.html and Shlomo Bentin http://pissaro.soc.huji.ac.il/Shlomo/people/shlomo.html, in a variety of languages. Various researchers developed compatible theoretical accounts of speech production
Speech production
Speech production is the process by which spoken words are selected to be produced, have their phonetics formulated and then finally are articulated by the motor system in the vocal apparatus...
, speech perception
Speech perception
Speech perception is the process by which the sounds of language are heard, interpreted and understood. The study of speech perception is closely linked to the fields of phonetics and phonology in linguistics and cognitive psychology and perception in psychology...
and phonological knowledge. Carol Fowler
Carol Fowler
Carol A. Fowler is an American experimental psychologist. She was a former President and Director of Research at Haskins Laboratories in New Haven, Connecticut from 1992 to 2008. She is also a Professor of Psychology at the University of Connecticut and an Adjunct Professor of Linguistics and...
http://www.haskins.yale.edu/staff/caf.html proposed a direct realism theory of speech perception: listeners perceive gestures not by means of a specialized decoder, as in the motor theory, but because information in the acoustic signal specifies the gestures that form it. J. A. Scott Kelso
J. A. Scott Kelso
J. A. Scott Kelso is a neuroscientist, and Professor of Complex Systems and Brain Sciences, Professor of Psychology, Biological Sciences and Biomedical Science at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida and The University of Ulster in Derry, N...
and colleagues demonstrated functional synergies in speech gestures experimentally. Elliot Saltzman http://www.haskins.yale.edu/staff/saltzman.html developed a dynamical systems theory of synergetic
Synergetics
Synergetics is an interdisciplinary science explaining the formation and self-organization of patterns and structures in open systems far from thermodynamic equilibrium. It is founded by Hermann Haken, inspired by the laser theory....
action and implemented the theory as a working model of speech production. Linguists
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
Catherine Browman
Catherine Browman
Catherine P. Browman is an American linguist and speech scientist. She was a research scientist at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey and Haskins Laboratories in New Haven, Connecticut, from which she retired due to illness. While at Bell Laboratories, she was known for her work on speech synthesis...
http://www.haskins.yale.edu/staff/browman.html and Louis Goldstein
Louis M. Goldstein
Louis M. Goldstein is an American linguist and cognitive scientist. He was previously a professor and chair of the Department of Linguistics and a professor of psychology at Yale University, and is now a professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Southern California...
http://www.yale.edu/linguist/faculty/louis.html developed the theory of articulatory phonology
Articulatory phonology
Articulatory phonology is a linguistic theory originally proposed in 1986 by Catherine Browman of Haskins Laboratories and Louis M. Goldstein of Yale University and Haskins...
http://www.haskins.yale.edu/research/gestural.html, in which gestures are the basic units of both phonetic action and phonological knowledge. Articulatory phonology, the task dynamic model, and the articulatory synthesis model are combined into a gestural computational model of speech production. http://www.haskins.yale.edu/research/gestural.html Saltzman and Rubin started the IS group to explore cutting edge developments in science and technology and foster collaboration across institutions and disciplines. The group, not formally affiliated with Haskins Laboratories, continues to meet.
1990s
Katherine Safford HarrisKatherine Safford Harris
Katherine S. Harris is a noted psychologist and speech scientist. She is Distinguished Professor Emerita in Speech and Hearing at the CUNY Graduate Center and a member of the Board of Directors of Haskins Laboratories. She is also the former President of the Acoustical Society of America and Vice...
, Frederica Bell-Bertihttp://www.stjohns.edu/academics/graduate/liberalarts/departments/speech and colleagues studied the phasing and cohesion of articulatory speech gestures. Kenneth Pughhttp://www.yalereadingcenter.com/ was among the first scientists to use functional magnetic resonance imaging
Functional magnetic resonance imaging
Functional magnetic resonance imaging or functional MRI is a type of specialized MRI scan used to measure the hemodynamic response related to neural activity in the brain or spinal cord of humans or other animals. It is one of the most recently developed forms of neuroimaging...
(fMRI) to reveal brain activity associated with reading and reading disabilities. Pugh, Donald Shankweiler http://www.sp.uconn.edu/~wwwpsyc/Faculty/Shankweiler/Shankweiler.html, Weija Nihttp://www.csr.nih.gov/photodisplay/finalinter.aspx?id=1258&orgid=340010003&other=0, Einar Mencl http://www.haskins.yale.edu/staff/mencl.html, and colleagues developed novel applications of neuroimaging
Neuroimaging
Neuroimaging includes the use of various techniques to either directly or indirectly image the structure, function/pharmacology of the brain...
to measure brain activity associated with understanding sentences. Philip Rubin
Philip Rubin
Philip E. Rubin is an American cognitive scientist and technologist who since 2003 has been the Chief Executive Officer and a Senior Scientist at Haskins Laboratories in New Haven, Connecticut...
, Louis Goldstein
Louis M. Goldstein
Louis M. Goldstein is an American linguist and cognitive scientist. He was previously a professor and chair of the Department of Linguistics and a professor of psychology at Yale University, and is now a professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Southern California...
and Mark Tiedehttp://www.haskins.yale.edu/staff/tiede.html designed a radical revision of the articulatory synthesis model, known as CASY http://www.haskins.yale.edu/facilities/casy.html, the configurable articulatory synthesizer. This 3-dimensional model of the vocal tract
Vocal tract
The vocal tract is the cavity in human beings and in animals where sound that is produced at the sound source is filtered....
permits researchers to replicate MRI images of actual speakers. Douglas Whalen http://www.haskins.yale.edu/staff/whalen.html, Goldstein, Rubin and colleagues extended this work to study the relation between speech production and perception. http://www.haskins.yale.edu/newsrelease/A93-2006.html Donald Shankweiler
Donald Shankweiler
Donald P. Shankweiler is an eminent psychologist and cognitive scientist who has done pioneering work on the representation and processing of language in the brain...
, Susan Brady http://www.uri.edu/artsci/psy/schpsy/Faculty.html http://www.haskins.yale.edu/staff/brady.html, Anne Fowler http://www.haskins.yale.edu/staff/fowlera.html, and others explored whether weak memory
Memory
In psychology, memory is an organism's ability to store, retain, and recall information and experiences. Traditional studies of memory began in the fields of philosophy, including techniques of artificially enhancing memory....
and perception
Perception
Perception is the process of attaining awareness or understanding of the environment by organizing and interpreting sensory information. All perception involves signals in the nervous system, which in turn result from physical stimulation of the sense organs...
in poor readers are tied specifically to phonological deficits. Evidence rejected broader cognitive deficits underlying reading difficulties and raised questions about impaired phonological representations in disabled readers.
2000s
Anne Fowlerhttp://www.haskins.yale.edu/staff/fowlera.html and Susan Brady http://www.haskins.yale.edu/mrin/staff/brady.html launched the Early Reading Success (ERS) program http://www.haskins.yale.edu:16080/ers/, part of the Haskins Literacy Initiativehttp://www.haskins.yale.edu/hli.html which promotes the science of teaching reading. The ERS program was a demonstration project examining the efficacy of professional developmentProfessional development
Professional development refers to skills and knowledge attained for both personal development and career advancement. Professional development encompasses all types of facilitated learning opportunities, ranging from college degrees to formal coursework, conferences and informal learning...
in reading instruction for teachers of children in kindergarten through second grade. The Mastering Reading Instruction program http://www.haskins.yale.edu/mrin.html, which combines professional development with Haskins-trained mentors, was a continuation of ERS. David Ostry
David Ostry
David J. Ostry is an engineer and neuroscientist whose research focuses on human motor control.He is a professor of Psychology at McGill University and a senior scientist at Haskins Laboratories in New Haven, Connecticut. His research focuses on understanding the biological mechanisms of voluntary...
http://www.psych.mcgill.ca/labs/mcl/David%20J_%20Ostry.htm and colleagues explored the neurological underpinning of motor control
Motor control
Motor control are information processing related activities carried out by the central nervous system that organize the musculoskeletal system to create coordinated movements and skilled actions...
using a robot arm to influence jaw
Jaw
The jaw is any opposable articulated structure at the entrance of the mouth, typically used for grasping and manipulating food. The term jaws is also broadly applied to the whole of the structures constituting the vault of the mouth and serving to open and close it and is part of the body plan of...
movement. Douglas Whalen
Douglas Whalen
Douglas H. Whalen is an American linguist who is presently a program officer at the National Science Foundation where he is affiliated with the Cognitive Neuroscience, Documenting Endangered Languages, and Linguistics programs...
and Khalil Iskarous http://www.haskins.yale.edu/staff/iskarous.html pioneered the pairing of ultrasound
Ultrasound
Ultrasound is cyclic sound pressure with a frequency greater than the upper limit of human hearing. Ultrasound is thus not separated from "normal" sound based on differences in physical properties, only the fact that humans cannot hear it. Although this limit varies from person to person, it is...
, used here to monitor articulators that cannot be seen, and Optotrakhttp://www.ndigital.com/certus.php, an opto-electronic position-tracking device, used here to monitor visible articulators. Donald Shankweiler
Donald Shankweiler
Donald P. Shankweiler is an eminent psychologist and cognitive scientist who has done pioneering work on the representation and processing of language in the brain...
http://www.sp.uconn.edu/~wwwpsyc/Faculty/Shankweiler/Shankweiler.html and David Braze http://www.haskins.yale.edu/staff/braze.html developed an eye movement laboratory that combines eye tracking
Eye tracking
Eye tracking is the process of measuring either the point of gaze or the motion of an eye relative to the head. An eye tracker is a device for measuring eye positions and eye movement. Eye trackers are used in research on the visual system, in psychology, in cognitive linguistics and in product...
data with brain activity measures for investigating reading processes in normal and disabled readers. In March 2005 Haskins Laboratories moved to a new state-of-the-art facility on George Street in New Haven. In 2008 Ken Pugh
Ken Pugh
Ken Pugh is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the Yale School of Medicine. He is also the President, Director of Research, and a Senior Scientist at Haskins Laboratories in New Haven, Connecticut, and the Director of the Yale Reading Center...
of Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
was named President and Director of Research, succeeding Carol Fowler
Carol Fowler
Carol A. Fowler is an American experimental psychologist. She was a former President and Director of Research at Haskins Laboratories in New Haven, Connecticut from 1992 to 2008. She is also a Professor of Psychology at the University of Connecticut and an Adjunct Professor of Linguistics and...
who remains at Haskins as a Senior Advisor. In 2009 Haskins released its new Strategic Planhttp://www.haskins.yale.edu/StrategicPlan.html, which features new Birth-to-Five and Bilingualism initiatives.
Also see (people)
- Arthur S. AbramsonArthur S. AbramsonArthur S. Abramson is an American linguist, phonetician, and speech scientist. He is a Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at the University of Connecticut , where he was the founding chair, and a Senior Scientist at Haskins Laboratories in New Haven, Connecticut. He is also a member of the Board of...
- Susan Brady
- David Braze
- Catherine BrowmanCatherine BrowmanCatherine P. Browman is an American linguist and speech scientist. She was a research scientist at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey and Haskins Laboratories in New Haven, Connecticut, from which she retired due to illness. While at Bell Laboratories, she was known for her work on speech synthesis...
- Franklin S. CooperFranklin S. CooperFranklin Seaney Cooper was an American physicist and inventor who was a pioneer in speech research.-Biography:...
- Carol FowlerCarol FowlerCarol A. Fowler is an American experimental psychologist. She was a former President and Director of Research at Haskins Laboratories in New Haven, Connecticut from 1992 to 2008. She is also a Professor of Psychology at the University of Connecticut and an Adjunct Professor of Linguistics and...
- Louis M. GoldsteinLouis M. GoldsteinLouis M. Goldstein is an American linguist and cognitive scientist. He was previously a professor and chair of the Department of Linguistics and a professor of psychology at Yale University, and is now a professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Southern California...
- Katherine Safford HarrisKatherine Safford HarrisKatherine S. Harris is a noted psychologist and speech scientist. She is Distinguished Professor Emerita in Speech and Hearing at the CUNY Graduate Center and a member of the Board of Directors of Haskins Laboratories. She is also the former President of the Acoustical Society of America and Vice...
- Caryl Parker HaskinsCaryl Parker HaskinsCaryl Parker Haskins was a scientist, author, inventor, philanthropist, governmental adviser and pioneering entomologist in the study of ant biology . In the 1930s he was inspired by Alfred Lee Loomis to establish his own research facility. Along with Franklin S. Cooper, he founded the Haskins...
- Leonard KatzLeonard KatzBorn in Boston, Massachusetts in 1938, Leonard Katz is an American experimental psychologist. He was a Professor of Psychology at the University of Connecticut and is now Professor Emeritus. In the late 1960s, he applied the emerging concepts and experimental techniques of the new cognitive...
- J. A. Scott KelsoJ. A. Scott KelsoJ. A. Scott Kelso is a neuroscientist, and Professor of Complex Systems and Brain Sciences, Professor of Psychology, Biological Sciences and Biomedical Science at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida and The University of Ulster in Derry, N...
- Alvin LibermanAlvin LibermanAlvin Meyer Liberman was an American psychologist whose ideas set the agenda for fifty years of research in the psychology of speech perception and laid the groundwork for modern computer speech synthesis and the understanding of critical issues in cognitive science...
- Isabelle LibermanIsabelle LibermanIsabelle Yoffe Liberman was an American psychologist, born in Latvia, who was an expert on reading disabilities, including dyslexia. Isabelle Liberman received her bachelor's degree from Vassar College and her doctorate from Yale University...
- Philip LiebermanPhilip LiebermanPhilip Lieberman is a linguist at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Originally trained in phonetics, he wrote a dissertation on intonation. The remainder of his career has focused on topics in the evolution of language, and particularly the relationship between the...
- Leigh LiskerLeigh LiskerLeigh Lisker was an eminent American linguist and phonetician. Most of his career was spent at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was a professor and then emeritus professor of linguistics. Dr. Lisker received his A.B. in 1941, with a major in German, his M.A. in 1946, and a Ph.D. in 1949 in...
- Ignatius MattinglyIgnatius MattinglyIgnatius G. Mattingly was a prominent American linguist and speech scientist. Prior to his academic career, he was an analyst for the National Security Agency from 1955-1966. He was a Lecturer and then Professor of Linguistics at the University of Connecticut from 1966-1996 and a researcher at...
- David OstryDavid OstryDavid J. Ostry is an engineer and neuroscientist whose research focuses on human motor control.He is a professor of Psychology at McGill University and a senior scientist at Haskins Laboratories in New Haven, Connecticut. His research focuses on understanding the biological mechanisms of voluntary...
- Ken PughKen PughKen Pugh is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the Yale School of Medicine. He is also the President, Director of Research, and a Senior Scientist at Haskins Laboratories in New Haven, Connecticut, and the Director of the Yale Reading Center...
- Robert RemezRobert RemezRobert Remez is an American experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, theoretician and teacher. He is currently a Professor of Psychology at Barnard College, Columbia University and Chair of the Columbia University Seminar on Language & Cognition . His teaching focuses on the relationships...
- Philip RubinPhilip RubinPhilip E. Rubin is an American cognitive scientist and technologist who since 2003 has been the Chief Executive Officer and a Senior Scientist at Haskins Laboratories in New Haven, Connecticut...
- Elliot SaltzmanElliot SaltzmanElliot Saltzman is an American psychologist and speech scientist. He is a professor in the Department of Physical Therapy at Boston University and a Senior Scientist at Haskins Laboratories in New Haven, Connecticut. He is best known for his development, with J. A...
- Donald ShankweilerDonald ShankweilerDonald P. Shankweiler is an eminent psychologist and cognitive scientist who has done pioneering work on the representation and processing of language in the brain...
- Michael Studdert-KennedyMichael Studdert-KennedyMichael Studdert-Kennedy is an eminent psychologist and speech scientist. He is well known for his contributions to studies of speech perception, the motor theory of speech perception, and the evolution of language, among other areas. He is a Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of...
- Michael TurveyMichael TurveyMichael T. Turvey is the Board of Trustees' Distinguished Professor of Experimental Psychology at the University of Connecticut and a Senior Scientist at Haskins Laboratories in New Haven, Connecticut. He is best known for his pioneering work in ecological psychology and in applying dynamic systems...
- Douglas WhalenDouglas WhalenDouglas H. Whalen is an American linguist who is presently a program officer at the National Science Foundation where he is affiliated with the Cognitive Neuroscience, Documenting Endangered Languages, and Linguistics programs...
Also see (topics)
- alphabetic principleAlphabetic principleAccording to the alphabetic principle, letters and combinations of letters are the symbols used to represent the speech sounds of a language based on systematic and predictable relationships between written letters, symbols, and spoken words...
- articulatory phonologyArticulatory phonologyArticulatory phonology is a linguistic theory originally proposed in 1986 by Catherine Browman of Haskins Laboratories and Louis M. Goldstein of Yale University and Haskins...
- articulatory synthesisArticulatory synthesisArticulatory synthesis refers to computational techniques for synthesizing speech based on models of the human vocal tract and the articulation processes occurring there. The shape of the vocal tract can be controlled in a number of ways which usually involves modifying the position of the speech...
- categorical perceptionCategorical perceptionCategorical perception is the experience of percept invariances in sensory phenomena that can be varied along a continuum. Multiple views of a face, for example, are mapped onto a common identity, visually distinct objects such as cars are mapped into the same category and distinct speech tokens...
- coarticulationCoarticulationCoarticulation in its general sense refers to a situation in which a conceptually isolated speech sound is influenced by, and becomes more like, a preceding or following speech sound...
- cognitive scienceCognitive scienceCognitive science is the interdisciplinary scientific study of mind and its processes. It examines what cognition is, what it does and how it works. It includes research on how information is processed , represented, and transformed in behaviour, nervous system or machine...
- cognitive neuroscienceCognitive neuroscienceCognitive neuroscience is an academic field concerned with the scientific study of biological substrates underlying cognition, with a specific focus on the neural substrates of mental processes. It addresses the questions of how psychological/cognitive functions are produced by the brain...
- dichotic listeningDichotic listeningIn cognitive psychology, dichotic listening is a procedure commonly used to investigate selective attention in the auditory system. In dichotic listening, two different auditory stimuli are presented to the participant simultaneously, one to each ear, normally using a set of headphones...
- direct realism
- experimental psychologyExperimental psychologyExperimental psychology is a methodological approach, rather than a subject, and encompasses varied fields within psychology. Experimental psychologists have traditionally conducted research, published articles, and taught classes on neuroscience, developmental psychology, sensation, perception,...
- eye trackingEye trackingEye tracking is the process of measuring either the point of gaze or the motion of an eye relative to the head. An eye tracker is a device for measuring eye positions and eye movement. Eye trackers are used in research on the visual system, in psychology, in cognitive linguistics and in product...
- linguisticsLinguisticsLinguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
- motor theory of speech perceptionMotor theory of speech perceptionthumb|250px|right|When we hear [[speech|spoken words]] we sense that they are made of auditory [[sound]]s. The motor theory of speech perception argues that behind the sounds we hear are the intended movements of the [[vocal tract]] that [[pronunciation|pronounces]] them.The motor theory of speech...
- Pattern playbackPattern playbackThe Pattern playback is an early talking device that was built by Dr. Franklin S. Cooper and his colleagues, including John M. Borst and Caryl Haskins, at Haskins Laboratories in the late 1940s and completed in 1950. There were several different versions of this hardware device. Only one currently...
- phonemic awarenessPhonemic awarenessPhonemic awareness is a subset of phonological awareness in which listeners are able to hear, identify and manipulate phonemes, the smallest units of sound that can differentiate meaning...
- phonological awarenessPhonological awarenessPhonological awareness refers to an individual's awareness of the phonological structure, or sound structure, of spoken words. Phonological awareness is an important and reliable predictor of later reading ability and has, therefore, been the focus of much research.- Overview :Phonological...
- reading
- reading machineReading machineA reading machine is a piece of Assistive Technology that allows blind people to access printed materials. It scans text, converts the image into text by means of optical character recognition and uses a speech synthesizer to read out what it has found....
- sinewave synthesisSinewave synthesisSinewave synthesis, or sine wave speech, is a technique for synthesizing speech by replacing the formants with pure tone whistles. The first sinewave synthesis program for the automatic creation of stimuli for perceptual experiments was developed by Philip Rubin at Haskins Laboratories in the 1970s...
- speech perceptionSpeech perceptionSpeech perception is the process by which the sounds of language are heard, interpreted and understood. The study of speech perception is closely linked to the fields of phonetics and phonology in linguistics and cognitive psychology and perception in psychology...
- speech synthesisSpeech synthesisSpeech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or hardware...
- voice onset timeVoice onset timeIn phonetics, voice onset time, commonly abbreviated VOT, is a feature of the production of stop consonants. It is defined as the length of time that passes between when a stop consonant is released and when voicing, the vibration of the vocal folds, or, according to the authors, periodicity begins...
- Watergate tapesWatergate tapesThe Watergate tapes, a subset of the Nixon tapes, are a collection of recordings of conversations between Richard Nixon and his fellow conspirators plotting a break in to the Watergate Hotel. U.S. President Richard Nixon and various White House staff started communicating on February 1971 and...