Dr. Rochelle Suzanne Newman |
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University of Maryland College Park College of Behavioral and Social Sciences Hearing & Speech Sciences Associate Professor University of Maryland College Park College of Behavioral and Social Sciences Hearing & Speech Sciences Graduate Studies DirectorAppointed: 2008 University of Maryland College Park Program in Neuroscience & Cognitive Science Associate Professor |  |
Mailing AddressDepartment of Hearing and Speech Sciences 0100 Lefrak Hall University of Maryland College Park, Maryland 20742United States | Contact InformationPhone: (301) 405-4226 Fax: (301) 314-2023 rnewman@hesp.umd.edu http://www.bsos.umd.edu/hesp/facultyStaff/newmanr.htm |
Qualifications
Ph.D., University at Buffalo, Psychology, 1997.
M.A., University at Buffalo, Psychology, 1995.
B.S.S., Northwestern University, Communication Sciences and Disorders, 1991.
Expertise and Research Interests
My research focuses on interactions between speech perception and word recognition in infants and adults. Speech perception and word recognition traditionally have been treated as distinct: the former is viewed as related to issues in hearing, acoustics, and auditory attention, while the latter is related to issues in memory retrieval, information storage, and categorization. In spite of these somewhat arbitrary distinctions, the two levels of processing place important limits on each other, and by studying both simultaneously I can gain a more complete understanding of language processing as a whole. I also feel it is important to study not only language processing in adults, but in infants as well, particularly how processing abilities develop overtime. Although the specific issues in developmental and adult research differ, each of the two areas offers valuable insights that inform my research in the other.
My research on streaming in infants offers perhaps the clearest example of the synergythat can develop by exploring infant and adult research concurrently. One of the earliest stages in speech perception involves separating the signal from background noise. Adults often converse in noisy environments, and can attend to one voice among the babble of a crowd. This has long been recognized as a critical issue in adult speech perception, but had not received developmental attention. I found this somewhat surprising, because it might be considered an even more critical issue for language acquisition: Learning language is one of the most important tasks facing an infant, and isolating the speech stream is a critical first step in this process. My knowledge of the adult literature allowed me to recognize this research gap, and my recent NIH and NSF grants have provided me the opportunity to explore more fully the advantages to this approach.
Consider an infant sitting in a room with her family. Her mother is speaking to her while her older sister is watching television. Her brother is talking on the telephone. Unless the infant can separate this amalgamation into its constituent parts, it would be unlikely that she could learn from her caregiver's speech. There is a vast amount of potential auditory information available to a language-learner, and recent years have seen an increase in theories of language acquisition that depend on exposure to large amounts of this information. Infants' ability to separate speech from the background noise limits the amount of this speech information the infants can be expected to use. Thus, studying these basic auditory abilities is an important underpinning for theories of language acquisition.
In conjunction with Peter Jusczyk, I provided the first demonstration of infants' ability to separate streams of simultaneous speech. However, this ability appears to be far more limited in children than it is in adults. Children need larger amplitude differences between the signal and the background noise, and seem more affected by the degree of similarity between voices. Recent results from my lab suggest that while infants can stream apart two voices when they differ in gender, they have far more difficulty doing so with two voices of the same gender. Long-term familiarity with a voice helps to overcome this difficulty, however; infants are far better at separating two voices when the target voice is that of their own mothers. Future research will look at the development of streaming longitudinally, and on infants' awareness of their name spoken in unattended channel (classically known as the "cocktail party effect").
Not only did my knowledge about the adult literature spark new ideas for developmental research, but our developmental findings have encouraged new areas of adult research as well. For example, after finding that infants performed better on streaming tasks when listening to their own mother's voice, we discovered that no one had examined the role that knowledge about a talker might play in adult streaming. We are now beginning an adult study investigating the role of talker familiarity on streaming. We are also beginning to examine the role of maternal speech style (commonly referred to as "motherese") in streaming -- many of the acoustic cues that have been shown to be important in the adult streaming literature (cues such as a average pitch, pitch variability, duration, etc.) are the same cues that distinguish infant-directed speech from adult-directed speech. One possibility is that motherese serves to make infant-directed speech more distinct from background speech, and thus easier for infants to follow. Here, then, is a true exchange between developmental and adult research, with findings from both areas informing research in the other.
This philosophy, of studying multiple levels of processing, and of studying language in both adults and in children, has guided most of my research.
My research on streaming in infants offers perhaps the clearest example of the synergythat can develop by exploring infant and adult research concurrently. One of the earliest stages in speech perception involves separating the signal from background noise. Adults often converse in noisy environments, and can attend to one voice among the babble of a crowd. This has long been recognized as a critical issue in adult speech perception, but had not received developmental attention. I found this somewhat surprising, because it might be considered an even more critical issue for language acquisition: Learning language is one of the most important tasks facing an infant, and isolating the speech stream is a critical first step in this process. My knowledge of the adult literature allowed me to recognize this research gap, and my recent NIH and NSF grants have provided me the opportunity to explore more fully the advantages to this approach.
Consider an infant sitting in a room with her family. Her mother is speaking to her while her older sister is watching television. Her brother is talking on the telephone. Unless the infant can separate this amalgamation into its constituent parts, it would be unlikely that she could learn from her caregiver's speech. There is a vast amount of potential auditory information available to a language-learner, and recent years have seen an increase in theories of language acquisition that depend on exposure to large amounts of this information. Infants' ability to separate speech from the background noise limits the amount of this speech information the infants can be expected to use. Thus, studying these basic auditory abilities is an important underpinning for theories of language acquisition.
In conjunction with Peter Jusczyk, I provided the first demonstration of infants' ability to separate streams of simultaneous speech. However, this ability appears to be far more limited in children than it is in adults. Children need larger amplitude differences between the signal and the background noise, and seem more affected by the degree of similarity between voices. Recent results from my lab suggest that while infants can stream apart two voices when they differ in gender, they have far more difficulty doing so with two voices of the same gender. Long-term familiarity with a voice helps to overcome this difficulty, however; infants are far better at separating two voices when the target voice is that of their own mothers. Future research will look at the development of streaming longitudinally, and on infants' awareness of their name spoken in unattended channel (classically known as the "cocktail party effect").
Not only did my knowledge about the adult literature spark new ideas for developmental research, but our developmental findings have encouraged new areas of adult research as well. For example, after finding that infants performed better on streaming tasks when listening to their own mother's voice, we discovered that no one had examined the role that knowledge about a talker might play in adult streaming. We are now beginning an adult study investigating the role of talker familiarity on streaming. We are also beginning to examine the role of maternal speech style (commonly referred to as "motherese") in streaming -- many of the acoustic cues that have been shown to be important in the adult streaming literature (cues such as a average pitch, pitch variability, duration, etc.) are the same cues that distinguish infant-directed speech from adult-directed speech. One possibility is that motherese serves to make infant-directed speech more distinct from background speech, and thus easier for infants to follow. Here, then, is a true exchange between developmental and adult research, with findings from both areas informing research in the other.
This philosophy, of studying multiple levels of processing, and of studying language in both adults and in children, has guided most of my research.
Other Expertise
Affiliate, Center for the Applied Study of Language
Faculty member, Program in Neuroscience & Cognitive Science, UMD
Associate Editor, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2007-present
- Ad-hoc reviewer for NSF, Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences; NIH, Communication Disorders Review Committee
- Editorial board, Perception and Psychophysics, 2003-2005
- Ad-hoc reviewer for Child Development
- Ad-hoc reviewer for Cognition
- Ad-hoc reviewer for Psychological Science
- Ad-hoc reviewer for Developmental Psychology
- Ad-hoc reviewer for the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance
- Ad-hoc reviewer for the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
- Ad-hoc reviewer for the Journal of Speech, Language & Hearing Research
- Ad-hoc reviewer for the Journal of Phonetics
- Ad-hoc reviewer for Infancy
- Ad-hoc reviewer for Speech Communication
- Ad-hoc reviewer for Language and Cognitive Processes
- Ad-hoc reviewer for the Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology
- Ad-hoc reviewer for Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics
- Ad-hoc reviewer for Journal of Memory and Language
- Ad-hoc reviewer for Behavior Research Methods, Instrumentation & Computers
- Ad-hoc reviewer for Applied Psycholinguistics
- Ad-hoc reviewer for Brain & Language
Faculty member, Program in Neuroscience & Cognitive Science, UMD
Associate Editor, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2007-present
- Ad-hoc reviewer for NSF, Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences; NIH, Communication Disorders Review Committee
- Editorial board, Perception and Psychophysics, 2003-2005
- Ad-hoc reviewer for Child Development
- Ad-hoc reviewer for Cognition
- Ad-hoc reviewer for Psychological Science
- Ad-hoc reviewer for Developmental Psychology
- Ad-hoc reviewer for the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance
- Ad-hoc reviewer for the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
- Ad-hoc reviewer for the Journal of Speech, Language & Hearing Research
- Ad-hoc reviewer for the Journal of Phonetics
- Ad-hoc reviewer for Infancy
- Ad-hoc reviewer for Speech Communication
- Ad-hoc reviewer for Language and Cognitive Processes
- Ad-hoc reviewer for the Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology
- Ad-hoc reviewer for Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics
- Ad-hoc reviewer for Journal of Memory and Language
- Ad-hoc reviewer for Behavior Research Methods, Instrumentation & Computers
- Ad-hoc reviewer for Applied Psycholinguistics
- Ad-hoc reviewer for Brain & Language
Keywords
COS Keywords:
Cognitive Development Or Processes, Cognitive Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Early Childhood Development, Hearing, Infant Psychology, Infants, Language Acquisition and Development, Menopause, Phonology, Psychology, Speech and Language Disorders, Speech Or Communication Education, Speech Pathology.Additional Terms:
Cognitive Processes, Cognitive Psychology, Communication Disorders, Laboratory Phonology, Language Acquisition, Language Development, Phonetics, Speech Disorders, Speech Perception, Speech Production, Word Recognition, Word-finding and Menopause.Languages
(Reading, Writing, Speaking)
American Sign Language: (Functional, Functional, None)
Memberships
Acoustical Society of America
International Society for Infant Studies
Language Development Society
Psychonomic Society
Previous Positions
2001-2007, Assistant Professor,
University of Maryland College Park,
College of Behavioral and Social Sciences,
Hearing & Speech Sciences
1997-2001, Assistant Professor,
University of Iowa,
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences,
Psychology
1991-1994, Fellow,
National Science Foundation
1991-1997, Research Assistant,
University at Buffalo
1990, G.T.E. Laboratories,
IURP
Funding Received
- National Science Foundation (NSF): The development of language and attention in infancy, $34,873, Oct 1, 1999 to Sep 30, 2003.
- Bamford-Lahey Foundation: Perceptual precursors of early language development, $20,000, Jan 15, 2003 to Jan 15, 2004.
- National Institutes of Health (NIH): The development of language and attention in infancy, $146,910, Aug 1, 1999 to Jul 31, 2003.
- National Science Foundation (NSF): Speech and nonspeech predictors of later language development, $262,277 total direc, 2008 to 2011.
- National Science Foundation (NSF): Development of infant stream segregation: The interplay between perception and cognition, $168,135 total direc, 2007 to 2009.
Publications
- Newman, R. S. (2008) Infant's listening in multitalker environments: Effect of the number of background talkers, Perception & Psychophysics, In Press
- Newman, R. S., Sawusch, J. R. (2008) Perceptual normalization for speaking rate III: Effects of the rate of one voice on perception of another, Journal of Phonetics, In Press
- Newman, R. S., Samuelson, L., Gupta, P. (2008) Learning novel neighbors: distributed mappings help children and connectionist models, Proceedings of CogSci2008
- Newman, R. S. (2008) The level of detail in infants' word learning, Current Directions in Psychological Science, 17 (3), 229-232
- Newman RS, Bernstein Ratner N (Feb 2007) The role of selected lexical factors on confrontation naming accuracy, speed, and fluency in adults who do and do not stutter., Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR, 50 (1), 196-213
- Newman, R. S., Factors that affect naming in adults and children who stutter, Proceedings of the 5th World Congress on Fluency Disorders, 2007
- German, D. J., Newman, R. S. (2007) Oral reading skills of children with oral language (word finding) difficulties, Reading Psychology, 28 (5)
- Newman, R. S., Evers, S. E. (2007) The role of talker familiarity on stream segregation, Journal of Phonetics, 3, 85-103
- Newman R, Ratner NB, Jusczyk AM, Jusczyk PW, Dow KA (Jul 2006) Infants' early ability to segment the conversational speech signal predicts later language development: a retrospective analysis., Developmental psychology, 42 (4), 643-55
- Newman RS (May 2006) Perceptual restoration in toddlers., Perception & psychophysics, 68 (4), 625-42
- Newman, R. S. & Hussain, I., Changes in infant preference for infant-directed speech in low and moderate noise by 4.5 to 13-month-olds, Infancy, 10(1), 61-76, 2006
- Newman, R. S., Sawusch, J. R. & Luce, P. A (2005) Do Post-onset Segments Define a Lexical Neighborhood?, Memory & Cognition, 33 (6), 941-960
- Newman RS, The Cocktail Party Effect in Infants Revisited: Listening to One's Name In
Noise., Developmental Psychology, 41(2), 352-62, Mar 2005
- Newman RS, German DJ (2005) Life span effects of lexical factors on oral naming., Language and speech, 48 (Pt 2), 123-56
- Hollich G, Newman RS, Jusczyk PW, Infants' Use of Synchronized Visual Information to Separate Streams Of
Speech., Child Development, 76(3), 598-613, May-Jun 2005
- Barker BA, Newman RS (Dec 2004) Listen to your mother! The role of talker familiarity in infant streaming., Cognition, 94 (2), B45-53
- German DJ, Newman RS (Jun 2004) The impact of lexical factors on children's word-finding errors., Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR, 47 (3), 624-36
- Newman, R. S, Perceptual restoration in children, Applied Psycholinguistics, 25, 481-493, 2004
- Gupta, P., Lipiniski, J.Abbs, B., Lin, P.-H., Aktunc, M. E., Ludden, D., Martin, N., and Newman, R., Space Aliens and Nonwords: Stimuli for Investigating the Learning of Novel Word-Meaning Pairs, Behavioral Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers, 36(4), 599-603, 2004
- Newman RS, Using Links Between Speech Perception and Speech Production to Evaluate
Different Acoustic Metrics: a Preliminary Report., The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 113(5), 2850-60, May 2003
- Weppelman, T. L., Bostow, A., Schiffer, R., Elbert-Perez, E. & Newman, R. S, Children's use of the prosodic characteristics of infant-directed speech, Language and Communication, 23(1), 63-80, 2003
- Newman, R. S, Prosodic differences in mothers’ speech to toddlers in quiet and noisy environments, Applied Psycholinguistics, 24, 539-560, 2003
- Newman, R. S. & German, D. J, Effects of lexical factors on word naming among normal-learning children and children with word-finding disorders, Language and Speech, 43(3), 285-317, 2002
- Newman RS, Clouse SA, Burnham JL, The perceptual consequences of within-talker variability in fricative production, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 109(3), 1181-96, March 2001
- Sawusch, J. R. and Newman, R. S, Perceptual normalization for speaking rate II: Effects of signal discontinuities, Perception and Psychophysics, 62, 2000
- Newman, R. S., Not all neighborhood effects are created equal, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 23(3), 343, 2000
- Newman, R. S., Sawusch, J. R. and Luce, P. A, The influence of underspecification and phoneme frequency in speech perception, Papers in Laboratory Phonology 5: Language Acquisition and the Lexicon, 298-311, 1999
- Newman RS, Sawusch JR, Luce PA, Lexical Neighborhood Effects in Phonetic Processing., Journal of Experimental Psychology. Human Perception and Performance, 23(3), 873-89, Jun 1997
- Newman RS, Jusczyk PW, The Cocktail Party Effect in Infants., Perception & Psychophysics, 58(8), 1145-56, Nov 1996
- Newman RS, Sawusch JR, Perceptual Normalization for Speaking Rate: Effects of Temporal Distance., Perception & Psychophysics, 58(4), 540-60, May 1996
- Newman, R. S. & Evers, S. E, The role of talker familiarity on stream segregation, Journal of Phonetics, In Press
- Newman, R. S. and Bernstein Ratner, N., The role of selected lexical factors on confrontation naming accuracy, speed and fluency in adults who do and do not stutter, Journal of Speech, Language & Hearing Research, In Press
- German, D. J. & Newman, R. S, Oral reading skills of children with oral language (word finding) difficulties, Reading Psychology
Profile Details
Last Updated: 12/31/2008
COS Expertise ID #412492
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Individual Expertise profile of Rochelle Suzanne Newman, Copyright Rochelle Suzanne Newman.
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