Press
Press for face-masked speech paper (Cohn, Pycha & Zellou, 2021). Click here to read the paper in ‘Cognition’
- 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)
- UC Davis Press Release [article] “Speaking and Listening Seem More Difficult in a Masked World, But People Are Adapting” (2/2/21)

Public Outreach
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. (2:30 John McWhorter introduction, Talk 3:23-7:31)