AUD 6306 – Speech Sciences – Spring 2006 `

Instructor: Dr. Peter Assmann Office: GR 4.126

Course: Speech Sciences Course number: AUD 6306-001
Class meetings: Fri 1:00-3:45 PM Office hours: Tues 11:00 am-12:00 noon
Classroom: CJ J204 Tel: 972-883-2435
Email: assmann@utdallas.edu Web: http://www.utdallas.edu/~assmann/aud6306.html
TA: Katrina Agung (katrina.agung@utdallas.edu)

Course description:
Speech communication can take place under extreme conditions: for example, in the presence of
environmental distortions such as noise and reverberation, when parts of the message are
obliterated or masked by competing sounds, when the identity of the speaker is unknown or the
dialect of the talker is unfamiliar, and when the auditory input is impoverished or distorted
because of hearing loss. This course considers how human listeners achieve this by looking at
auditory, perceptual, cognitive and neural processes that intervene between the production of
speech and its recognition. Topics include: acoustic correlates of phonetic categories; auditory
processing of speech in background noise and the "cocktail party" problem; the problem of
lexical access; the development of speech perception in infancy; auditory analysis and neural
coding of speech; audio-visual speech perception; environmental constraints on speech
perception, and the effects of hearing loss.

Readings: Readings packet to be distributed. The primary readings are journal articles and book
chapters (listed below). Assigned readings must be completed prior to the class in which they are
discussed.
Recommended texts:
• Kent, R.D. & Read, C. (2001). The Acoustic Analysis of Speech. (Singular).
• Stevens, K.N. (1999). Acoustic Phonetics (Current Studies in Linguistics). M.I.T. Press.

Course requirements:
• Class presentations (20%).
• Written report on class presentations (30%).
• Midterm exam (20%)
• Final takehome exam (30%)

Class presentation and report: Pick two topics from the list below. For each topic, pick one of
the assigned readings (or a related, approved substitute). Your job will be to present a brief
summary of the paper to the class (10-15 minutes) and initiate/lead discussion of the paper.
Dates Topics

Jan 13 Acoustics of speech

Jan 20 Vowel production and perception
Jan 27 Consonant production and perception
Feb 3 Suprasegmentals and prosody, lexical access
Feb 10 Environmental factors in speech perception
Feb 17 Noise, reverberation and the "cocktail party problem"
Feb 24 Audiovisual speech perception
Mar 3 Binaural speech perception. Deadline for midterm exam
Mar 10 NO CLASS – SPRING BREAK
Mar 17 Development of speech perception
Mar 25 Second language learning and speech perception
Apr 7 Effects of hearing impairment on speech communication
Apr 14 Effects of hearing impairment on speech communication
Apr 21 Neural coding of speech. Last class
Apr 28 Deadline for final take-home exam