Part of the fun of research is sharing what we find with the public and getting children/adults interested in speech science through outreach events (e.g., Picnic Day)! See below for a sampling of our press coverage and public outreach.
Press
JASA-EL Paper (Cohn, Mengesha, Lahav, & Heldreth, 2024)
AIP Publishing: Machine Listening: Making Speech Recognition Systems More Inclusive
Other media
New Scientist (“ChatGPT got an upgrade to make it seem more human”) quote
Unfold Podcast
- Georgia Zellou and I had a wonderful interview with Amy Quinton, of Unfold Podcast, at UC Davis on June 16th. We shared some of our research on human interactions with voice technology and discussed the implications for speech communication and language more generally.
- Hey Siri, Why Do I Speak Differently to You?
- Click here to listen to the podcast! (9/19/23)
Amy Quinton, Georgia Zellou, & Michelle Cohn in the Unfold Podcast studio at UC Davis
Press for ASA Talk (Zellou & Cohn, 2023)
- StudyFinds: AI baby talk? People change their voice while talking to Alexa and Siri (5/9/23)
- Acoustical Society of America: Hey Siri, can you hear me?
Press for face-masked speech paper (Cohn, Pycha & Zellou, 2021).
- UC Davis Press Release [article] “Speaking and Listening Seem More Difficult in a Masked World, But People Are Adapting” (2/2/21)
- In Focus [article]. “Speech Unmasked: UWM linguist studies how masks impact intelligibility” (3/2021)
- CBS 58 Milwaukee On-Air News Segment [article/video]. “Researchers look at how masks impact communication (3/18/21)
- Equinox [article] “Unmask Masked Speech” (3/6/21)
- US News & World Report [article] “As Mask-Wearing Prevails, People Are Adapting to Understanding Speech” (2/8/21)
- Ladders [article] “This is how you can make masked conversations 100% more successful” (2/8/21)
- WFMY Greensboro On-Air News Segment [article] [video] “What did you say? How masks affect your communication & understanding” (2/4/21)
- KCBS San Francisco (106.9FM AND 740AM) Live Interview with Rebecca Corral [article] [recording] “UC Davis conducts study on how wearing a mask affects our speech patterns” (2/3/21)
- CBS-13 Sacramento On-Air News Segment [article] [video] “UC Davis Study Finds Face Masks Do Not Impact Ability To Communicate” (2/2/21)
Public Outreach
Picnic Day 2024
The UC Davis Phonetics Lab and Language Learning Lab hosted our Speech Science booth at the 2024 UC Davis Picnic Day on Saturday, April 20th at the Children’s Discovery Fair!
I organized the booth and activities: we had spectrograms / waveforms that adults & kids could circle to learn about the components of speech, as well as a ‘Bot or Not’ experiment they could try to determine if speakers were text-to-speech (TTS) or human voices.
Picnic Day 2023
The UC Davis Phonetics Lab and Language Learning Lab hosted a joint Speech Science Booth at this year’s Picnic Day, a campus-wide open house. Children and adults tried examples of experiments and learned about how we produce, perceive, and learn speech patterns. Thanks to all who came by the booth and our fantastic group of postdocs, graduate students, and undergraduate research assistants who helped out!
Take our Children to Work (TOC) Day 2023
We hosted families at the UC Davis Phonetics Lab for the 2023 Take Our Children to Work Day on April 27th. Children and adults participated in a real speech science experiment and learned more about the research we do at the PhonLab! Thanks to all who visited!
Public Outreach: UC Davis Take our Children to Work (TOC) Day
We’re hosting a virtual event at the UC Davis Phonetics Lab (Dept. of Linguistics) on Thursday, April 28th. https://hr.ucdavis.edu/departments/worklife-wellness/events/tocs [Remote-activity].Come learn about speech science with Siri, Alexa, and Google assistant! Kids (ages 7-12) can participate in a real science experiment with a voice assistant (note that a parent must be present to consent). You will need…
2021 Picnic Day Booth: Speech Science
Come learn about an interdisciplinary research project exploring how adults and kids talk to Amazon’s Alexa, compared to how they talk to a human. You’ll see an example of the experiment, meet the team, and get a behind-the-scenes look at the research process! Interested in participating? http://phonlab.ucdavis.edu/participate
Virtual Picnic Day 2020
This year’s Picnic Day is going 100% digital in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Fortunately, a small team of talented RAs (Patty Sandoval, Julian Rambob, Mia Gong, and Marlene Andrade)…
Linguistics outreach
“Phonologically motivated phonetic repair strategies in Siri- and human-directed speech”. in the 5 Minute Linguist competition at the 2019 Linguistic Society of America (LSA) annual meeting. (Talk 3:23-7:31)
Michelle Cohn 