UC in the City Lecture Series - Arts

Associate Professor Jen Hay (New Zealand Institute of Language, Brain and Behaviour) presents “Using your eyes for listening: how what we see affects what we hear”

The task of listening to and understanding human language is incredibly complicated, and yet most of us perform it on a daily basis with apparent ease. A small but necessary component of performing this feat is the successful recognition of a set of sounds - the range of consonants and vowels that exist in the language we are listening to. Our ears are obviously centrally involved in this process. But a surprising array of other information is also used by the listener and automatically integrated with what the ear is telling them. This talk discusses recent research demonstrating that what a listener is looking at affects what sounds they hear. For example, listeners can "hear" different sounds depending on the shape of a speaker's mouth, on what clothes the speaker is wearing, or even on what stuffed toys happen to be in the corner of the room. Such results point to a speech perception system which is incredibly versatile, and which makes combined use of information from a wide range of available sources.

Jennifer Hay did her undergraduate and MA work at Victoria University of Wellington, before moving to Northwestern University in Chicago to do her PhD. She has been at the University of Canterbury since 2000, where she is an Associate Professor in the Linguistics Programme. She is also the Director of the newly formed New Zealand Institute of Language, Brain and Behaviour - a highly multi-disciplinary centre dedicated to the study of human language. In her work she explores a wide range of issues relating to how people store, perceive and produce sounds and words. Much of her work focuses on New Zealand English, and on ways in which language can vary and change. She has published more than 50 refereed articles and four books, and holds editorial positions on several high profile international journals.

The lecture is part of the 2010 UC in the City lecture series which showcases research coming out of the University's colleges, schools and research centres. Entry is free. As seating is limited, please arrive early to ensure your seat in the Philip Carter Family Auditorium.

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