Insights into Speech, Cognition, and Instructional Design
Speaker: Dr Vivien Chan, City St George's, University of London
Abstract
Understanding how listeners perceive and adapt to foreign-accented speech is central to communication, education, and second language acquisition in today's interconnected and globalised world.
This talk presents findings from a series of studies that explore the interplay between acoustic-phonetic features, cognitive processes, and multimedia environments in shaping how listeners perceive accents and process speech.
The first part of the talk focuses on the phonetic foundations of foreign accent perception, highlighting how vowel formant frequencies, proximity in vowel space, and duration influence listeners' judgments.
These insights are extended to demonstrate how singing modifies these acoustic cues, leading to a reduction in perceived foreign accent. The second part examines the cognitive and contextual factors that modulate the perception of foreign-accented speech.
Multimedia learning environments, where learners are exposed to foreign-accented narration, offer a unique lens to study the interaction between auditory and visual information.
The research shows how on-screen text can alleviate comprehension challenges in such settings.
The practical applications of these findings on designing more effective instructional multimedia for online learning will also be explored.
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