New Zealand Institute of Language Brain and Behaviour

05/11/2025

Four Marsden grants have been awarded to NZILBB researchers in the 2025 round! Here are the exciting new projects:

Rebecca Bodeker, Randolph Grace and Anna Mitchell.
Can cognitive flexibility be regained once it has been lost?

Jen Hay, Lynn Clark and Jim Scobbie.
What is a phoneme and how many does New Zealand English have?

Wakayo Mattingley and Simon Todd
Understanding factors that underpin individual variation in the very earliest stages of adult language acquisition.

Catherine Theys, Campbell Le Heron and Tracy Melzer
Mapping brain changes in stuttering following Parkinson's disease and functional movement disorders.

18/09/2024

If you meet the criteria, please consider helping us out by doing this online experiment. It takes about 20 minutes. https://nzilbbsurvey.canterbury.ac.nz/753741?lang=en

11/09/2023

Hi, we are looking for participants in our online experiment which will take around 30 minutes in total. We are looking for people meeting the following criteria:

🇳🇿 you have lived in NZ since before you were 7;
1️⃣8️⃣ you are currently 18 years or older;
🏞️ you currently live in the South Island;
💻 you have access to a computer and headphones to complete the experiment.

Your participation will help us to better understand similarities and differences in NZ voices.
You will receive a NZ $10 e-voucher from giftpay.

During the experiment, you will be asked to listen to sound files over headphones and follow the instructions on screen to perform a simple task. The task is to group together speakers who you think sound similar. The experiment will end with a brief questionnaire about your background.
If you are interested in participating in this experiment, please follow this link: https://nzilbbsurvey.canterbury.ac.nz/938267?newtest=Y&lang=en

Thank you!

This study has been reviewed and approved by the University of Canterbury Human Research Ethics Committee

Toggle navigation Caution: JavaScript ex*****on is disabled in your browser or for this website. You may not be able to answer all questions in this survey. Please, verify your browser parameters. Similarities and Differences in NZ Voices Welcome! Thank you for your interest in our experiment. To pa...

25/03/2022

Did you move to NZ after you were 7 years old?
Please participate in our online linguistic experiment and receive a NZ $10 e-voucher !

Hi, we are looking for participants in our online experiment which will take less than 30 minutes in total. We are looking for non-Māori speakers in NZ meeting the following criteria:
(1) have lived outside of New Zealand until you were at least 7 years old; (2) be currently 18 years or older, and live in New Zealand; (3) not be able to hold a basic conversation in te reo Māori.

Your participation will help us to better understand how people learn about the word forms of a language. You will receive a NZ $10 e-voucher from GiftPay. During the experiment, you will be asked to read and follow the instructions on screen to perform three simple tasks. The three tasks are (a) to judge how good made-up words sound to you, (b) to provide your intuitions about the parts that make up Māori words, (c) to identify Māori words that you can recognize. The experiment will end with a brief questionnaire about your background.

Please note: this experiment is not compatible with mobile devices. You must use a desktop computer running updated version of Safari, Firefox or Google Chrome web browsers. If you are interested in participating in this experiment, please click on the following link:

Toggle navigation Caution: JavaScript ex*****on is disabled in your browser or for this website. You may not be able to answer all questions in this survey. Please, verify your browser parameters. Māori word judgements (IM) Welcome! Thank you for your interest in our experiment. To participate in t...

03/11/2021

NZILBB is so proud to announce that we have received funding from the Royal Society of NZ Marsden Fund for **three* projects starting in 2022.
*Congratulations to Dr Derrick, Professor Jermy & Professor Gick "Multi-sensory speech perception and syllable structure."
*Congratulations to Associate Professor Watson, Professor Hay and Dr Clark "Do patterns of covariation in speech carry social meaning?"
*Congratulations to Dr Panther “Understanding the nature of word grammar through Te Reo Māori.”

11/05/2021

Participate in our new online 'word-splitting' experiment and receive a NZ $10 e-voucher!

Hi, we are looking for participants in our online experiment which will take less than 30 minutes in total. We are looking for non-Māori speaking speakers of NZ English meeting the following criteria (1) be a native speaker of NZ English, 18 years or older; (2) not have lived outside New Zealand, for any period of longer than a year, since you were seven; (3) never have studied linguistics at a University; (4) not be able to hold a basic conversation in te reo Māori. Your participation will help us to better understand how people learn about the word forms of a language. You will receive a NZ $10 e-voucher from GiftPay. During the experiment, you will be asked to read and follow the instructions on screen to perform a simple task. The task is to provide your intuitions about the parts that make up Māori words. The experiment will end with a brief questionnaire about your background.

Please note: this experiment is not compatible with mobile devices. You must use a desktop computer running updated version of Safari, Firefox or Google Chrome web browsers. If you are interested in participating in this experiment, please click on the following link:

NZILBB

08/03/2021

Experiment on non-Māori-speakers' intuitions about words and non-words.
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Participate in our online linguistic experiment and receive a NZ $10 e-voucher !
Hi, we are looking for participants in our online experiment which will take less than 30 minutes in total. We are looking for non-Māori speaking speakers of NZ English meeting the following criteria (1) be a native speaker of NZ English, 18 years or older; (2) not have lived outside New Zealand, for any period of longer than a year, since you were seven; (3) never have studied linguistics at a University; (4) not be able to hold a basic conversation in te reo Māori. Your participation will help us to better understand how people learn about the sounds of a language. You will receive a NZ $10 e-voucher from GiftPay. During the experiment, you will be asked to read and follow the instructions on screen to perform simple tasks. The tasks are to identify Māori words that you can recognize and to rate how good words sound to you. The experiment will end with a brief questionnaire about your background.

Please note: this experiment is not compatible with mobile devices. You must use a desktop computer running updated version of Safari, Firefox or Google Chrome web browsers. If you are interested in participating in this experiment, please click on the following link: https://labbcat.canterbury.ac.nz/game/?task_id=21

(You'll receive your GiftPay voucher within 3 working days)

NZILBB

14/12/2020

We're now in a second round of data collection for this one, so if you grew up in NZ, meet the other criteria, and didn't participate in this a few months ago, please consider helping out and claiming your $10 giftpay voucher. Thank you!!
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NZ Participants needed for short linguistics experiment: ‘Is this a real word’?

We are looking for participants for our online experiment which will take around 20 minutes in total. We are looking for speakers of NZ English meeting the following criteria: (1) You are over the age of 18; (2) You speak English as your first language; (3) You have lived in New Zealand, without significant breaks, since before you were seven, and (4) You can complete the experiment in a quiet location on a computer, wearing headphones.
Your participation will help us to better understand how people perceive words in different contexts. In return, you will receive a NZ $10 e-voucher from giftpay. During the experiment, you will be asked to read and follow the instructions on screen to perform a very simple task. The task is to tell us whether you think that the recordings you hear are words or not. The experiment will end with a brief questionnaire about your background.
If you are interested in participating in this experiment, please click here: https://labbcat.canterbury.ac.nz/game/?task_id=20
Thank you!
(Once you have completed the experiment, you will receive your voucher by email within 3 working days).

NZILBB

20/09/2020

NZ Participants needed for short linguistics experiment: ‘Is this a real word’?

We are looking for participants for our online experiment which will take around 20 minutes in total. We are looking for speakers of NZ English meeting the following criteria: (1) You are over the age of 18; (2) You speak English as your first language, and (3) You have lived in New Zealand, without significant breaks, since before you were seven. (4) You can complete the experiment in a quiet location on a computer, wearing headphones.

Your participation will help us to better understand how people perceive words in different contexts. In return, you will receive a NZ $10 e-voucher from giftpay. During the experiment, you will be asked to read and follow the instructions on screen to perform a very simple task. The task is to tell us whether you think that the recordings you hear are words or not. The experiment will end with a brief questionnaire about your background.

If you are interested in participating in this experiment, please click here: https://labbcat.canterbury.ac.nz/game/?task_id=18

After you have completed the experiment, you will receive your voucher by email within 3 working days.

Thank you!

NZILBB

01/04/2020

Congratulations to NZILBB Adjunct Professor Janet Pierrehumbert on being awarded the ISCA Medal for Scientific Achievement 2020.

International Speech and Communication Association

07/08/2019

NZILBB

06/08/2019

Participate in our online linguistic experiment and receive a CAD $10 amazon.ca eGift card!

Hi, we are looking for participants in our online experiment which will take around 30 minutes in total. We are looking for speakers of Canadian English who do not understand French over the age of 18. Your participation will help us to better understand how people learn about the sounds of a language and in return, you will receive a CAD $10 eGift card from amazon.ca. During the experiment, you will be asked to read and follow the instructions on screen to perform a simple task. The task is to rate made-up words for how good they would be as French words. The experiment will end with a brief questionnaire about your background. If you are interested in participating in this experiment, please click on the following link https://labbcat.canterbury.ac.nz/game/?task_id=9. Thank you!

NZILBB