We study how listeners recognize speech, both from listening and lipreading.
Operating as usual
Curious about what happens to hearing and the ability to recognize speech at midlife? Read our new review article:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378595520303683
Middle-aged adults often report a decline in their ability to understand speech in adverse listening situations. However, there has been relatively li…
Congratulations to our graduating senior, Rachel Combs! She will attend the CUNY Graduate Center Audiology program starting in the Fall.
Congratulations to our graduating senior, Renée Clark! We are happy to hear that she chose UMass for her graduate studies. Renée will be a graduate student in the Speech-Language Pathology program within the Communication Disorders Department here at UMass.
Congratulations to our graduating senior, Emily Gardner! She will continue her career as a graduate student in the Speech-Language Pathology program at Worcester State University!
UMass Communication Disorders
Interested in contributing to COVID-19 efforts? Email Karen Helfer [email protected] to learn about a campaign to decrease isolation among nursing home residents.
For the safety of our community volunteers and our research staff, we have suspended all research activities until further notice.
We hope you consider supporting our work by participating at a later point in time.
If so, you can continue to contact us any time per email ([email protected]) or phone (909) 547-5221. With your permission, we will take your information and contact you once it is safe to test participants again. If desired, we can also already prescreen you via phone to see whether you qualify to participate. You can also book a phone screening appointment on this page.
Thank you for your continued support! We hope you and your loved ones remain safe.
Please stay safe. Older adults or people with severe chronic medical conditions should especially prepare in advance for the possibility of a COVID-19 outbreak in their community. Watch this video from the CDC's Deputy Director for Infectious Diseases, Dr. Jay C. Butler, to learn more about COVID-19 and older people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjcoN9Aek24&feature=youtu.be&utm_source=NIA+Main&utm_campaign=019bde2fde-20200313_COVID19video&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_ffe42fdac3-019bde2fde-7374921
Jay Butler, Deputy Director for Infectious Diseases at CDC, describes preventative measures to help protect older adults from COVID-19. Comments on this vide...
In the LIPS lab we study how seeing a speaker can help listeners with understanding speech - especially older listeners.
[To support this research, please contact us by calling us at (909) 547-5221 or email us at [email protected]]
This is in line with recent recommendations issued by the National Institute on Aging:
Hearing loss is a common problem caused by noise, aging, disease, and heredity. Approximately one in three people between the ages of 65 and 74 has hearing loss, and nearly half of those over 75 have difficulty hearing.
Here are some tips from the National Institute of Health that you can use when talking with someone who has a hearing problem:
- In a group, include people with hearing loss in the conversation.
- Find a quiet place to talk to help reduce background noise, especially in restaurants and at social gatherings.
- Stand in good lighting and use facial expressions or gestures to give clues.
- Face the person and speak clearly. Maintain eye contact.
- Speak a little more loudly than normal, but don’t shout.
- Try to speak slowly, but naturally.
- Do not hide your mouth, eat, or chew gum while speaking.
For more tips like this and to learn more about hearing loss in older adults, visit the NIA website:
https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/hearing-loss-common-problem-older-adults?utm_source=NIA+Main&utm_campaign=9ed6511d58-20200217_NIAhearingloss&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_ffe42fdac3-9ed6511d58-7374921
Learn about the types of hearing loss in older adults, devices that can help them hear better, and tips to help them cope with hearing loss.
We are excited to announce that a new research article by Dr. Jesse was accepted today! The work reported in the article shows that listeners use the context of a sentence to learn about the idiosyncratic pronunciation of speakers, so that they understand speakers better in the future. We thank everyone who contributed!
Presenting your data at the Aging and Speech Communication Meeting in Clearwater Beach, FL. Thanks to all participants in our study!
We are still looking for participants, especially for adults between 45 and 59 years of age!
Presenting our latest research at the Society for the Neurobiology of Language Meeting in Helsinki.
Did you know that the information listeners obtain from seeing someone talk can already change the processing of auditory speech at around 100 ms? - Our latest paper shows that this happens even if we look and focus at the speaker's eyes. So no need to stare at the mouth!
Our publication is now available online: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2019.107724
Read it for free until Sept. 17 2019 here:
https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1ZTdb14Stj1djd
Thanks to our participants who helped us with this work!
Elina Kaplan and Alexandra Jesse have a new research paper accepted for publication - Fixating the eyes of a speaker provides sufficient visual information to modulate early auditory processing.
A copy of our new research paper on the regressive assimilation bias in speech perception can now be accessed for free: https://rdcu.be/bJm5N
The Audiovisual Synchrony (AVSYNC) Study examines how language processing changes as we age. We need native speakers of American English between 45-60 years of age for two paid visits to our lab at UMass Amherst.
For more details, contact us by leaving a message at (909) 547-5221 or at [email protected].
We need people between the ages of 45 to 60 for a paid study on how we perceive speech. Please visit our website for information on this research opportunity and others!
http://lips.psych.umass.edu/main/?page_id=135
The UMass Language, Intersensory Perception, and Speech (LIPS) lab, directed by Dr. Alexandra Jesse, is looking for native speakers of American English who are between 45 to 80 years old and would like to be paid for participating in non-profit research.Our research program investigates how seeing a...
One of the many ways it pays off studying neuroscience and language at UMass: It helps doing the NYTimes crossword puzzle! note also 56: Brain region linked to speech
Congratulations to our two graduating seniors! Alexa Livingstone and Anarose Hogan have worked in the lab for the past two years as research assistants. Anarose also served as our lab manager. Both will start a Master's degree in Speech Language Pathology in the Fall. Alexa chose McGill and Anarose chose George Washington University for her graduate studies. We wish them best of luck! We'll miss you!
Meet the amazing student researchers of the LIPS Lab!
Check out our latest publication: Lexical Influences on Errors in Masked Speech Perception in Younger, Middle-Aged, & Older Adults. Found here: on.asha.org/2GRjfZl Featured in Special Issue of Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research- Select Papers From 7th Aging & Speech Communication
No AccessJournal of Speech, Language, and Hearing ResearchResearch Article26 Apr 2019Lexical Influences on Errors in Masked Speech Perception in Younger, Middle-Aged, and Older AdultsAlexandra Jesse, and Karen S. Helfer Alexandra Jesse Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of M....
An online version of our new paper is available! Listeners use information they obtain from seeing the speaker to adjust to their idiosyncratic realization of speech sounds. Our results have shown that the outcome of this learning process depend on the available attentional resources!
https://rdcu.be/bivjM
For the second time, LIPS Lab participated at the Jackson Street Elementary School's Annual Science Night. LIPS Lab research assistants transcribed children's names, tested their lipreading abilities, and turned their voices into laser patterns. Thanks for hosting us!
Participate in Speech Perception Research!
Are you between 45-60 or 65-80 years old?
Is American English your only native language?
Participate and see how you understand speech!
And/or consider sharing this post!!
The Language, Intersensory Perception, & Speech Lab at UMass Amherst is currently recruiting participants.
You will be paid $10/hour for your time.
If interested, contact us for more information and to find out if you might be eligible to participate!
Call us at (909) 547-5221 or email us at lipslab [at] umass.edu
[Research conducted by Dr. A. Jesse, University of Massachusetts, Amherst Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, 433 Tobin Hall, Amherst, MA Approved by the UMASS Psychological and Brain Sciences Department and the UMASS IRB (Study # 2018-5276, Expiration Date 1-14-2020]
JSS folks, come and visit us at Science Night @JSS tonight! Find out what your voice looks like and test how well you can read lips! Learn about what speech scientist do!
(Picture kindly provided by former JSS Kindergartener) Jackson Street PTO
Our current work, funded through a grant from the National Institute of Aging, investigates how aging affects how listeners combine information from both hearing and seeing a speaker to their benefit. Read more about our work in this news article:
https://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/article/studying-why-and-how-speaking-face-face
The vast majority of speech perception research has focused on how we recognize what the speaker saysthrough listening only, and has failed to capture the value of speaking face-to-face, says speech perception expert Alexandra Jesse at UMass Amherst.
We are excited that our new research paper on how listeners (mis)parse the continuous speech stream into individual sounds got accepted today! We thank the 206 participants who contributed to the seven experiments!
Have you ever noticed that it is easier to understand someone when we can also see them? - Whenever we see someone speak, we read their lips!💋
This becomes apparent to us in noisy situations. We then recognize what is being said much better if we can hear and see the speaker than when we only hear them. This audiovisual benefit can be quite striking!
The LIPS Lab at UMass directed by Dr. Alexandra Jesse is currently recruiting participants for studies investigating changes in how we perceive speech as we get older.
If you are between 45-60 or 65-80 years old and your first language was American English, please consider participating. Email us for more information! (lipslab at umass.edu)
You will be compensated for your time ($10/hr). All testing takes place in our lab at UMass Amherst.
Welcome to the Language, Intersensory Perception, and Speech Lab! Or short: The LIPS lab. We study how listeners recognize speech from hearing and seeing a talker. One particular focus is on how these processes changes as we get older.
UMass Language, Intersensory Perception, and Speech Lab
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