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Perceptual Experience
How we perceive our world depends critically upon experience with structure in the environment. Much of the study of high-level vision, for example, is focused upon the way the visual system comes to be organized in a way that reflects experience regularities in optical input. Experience is undoubtedly of equal importance in development and operation of the auditory system, yet somewhat emphasis has traditionally been placed on experience for hearing. We know that speech perception is critically dependent upon experience with the different types of speech sounds that are listened to in one's native language environment, and we are always engaged in studies to investigate how auditory perception of speech and other complex sounds is shaped by experience with regularities in the acoustic world.
In some cases, we study how listeners' perceptual performance is shaped through experience with statistical regularities within and between sets of novel sounds. We also use nonhuman animal subjects in studies in which we can precisely control experience with sounds, typically speech. We also are engaged in multiple efforts to develop realistic computational models for the way experience shapes perception. Future plans include studying how experience with structured sound environments gives rise to different patterns of cortical neural development. A representative ongoing study uses chinchillas as subjects in an effort to model perceptual development different language environments. We also are studying the classic phenomenon of categorical perception is a natural consequence of experience with statistical regularities in the environment.
Selected publications:
Keidel, J.L, Zevin, J.D., Kluender, K.R., & Seidenberg, M.S. (2003). "Modeling the role of native language knowledge in perceiving nonnative speech contrasts." Proceedings of the XIV International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, pp 2221-2224.
Holt, L.L., Lotto, A.J., & Kluender, K.R. (2001). "Influence of fundamental frequency on stop-consonant voicing perception: A case of learned covariance or auditory enhancement?" Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 109, 764-774.
Kluender, K.R., & Lotto, A.J. (1999). "Virtues and perils of empiricist approaches to speech perception." Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 105, 503-511.
Kluender, K.R., Lotto, A.J., Holt, L.L., & Bloedel, S.L. (1998). "Role of experience for language-specific functional mappings of vowel sounds. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 104, 3568-3582.
Kluender, K.R., Diehl, R.L., & Killeen, P.R. (1987). "Japanese Quail can form phonetic categories." Science, 237, 1195-1197.