Laurianne Cabrera (INCC) - How do human beings process the sounds of language ? A psychoacoustic and developmental approach.

Speech is a complex acoustical signal. A normally functioning auditory system is able to analyze and organize this complex signal as a sequence of linguistic units. The details of this process are not fully understood yet. For example, we still do not comprehensively understand what necessary (and sufficient) acoustic information is needed to correctly perceive speech signals, and how this process develops in humans. Our research aims to explore how speech perception interacts with auditory mechanisms during development, from birth to adulthood. How does a listener develop efficient speech processing abilities? More precisely, our work focuses on the auditory processing of some specific acoustic cues known to play a crucial role in speech perception: the spectro-temporal modulations. We use a psychoacoustic model describing the bio-mechanic stages of auditory processing involved in speech perception. This model helps to explore the development of auditory perception for listeners with normal hearing, as well as the effects of hearing impairments on speech and language development.