The brain-bases of phonetic sound change and phonetic cue weighting using EEG

Understanding spoken language requires integrating multiple acoustic and physical properties of the speech signal into composite representations. This proposal is part of a larger international collaboration aimed at understanding how pitch—a fundamental property of language—is encoded in the brains of speakers across a wide range of languages (e.g., English, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese), each of which uses pitch in distinct ways. Most research to date has focused primarily on English. Expanding to multiple languages is essential for building a broad empirical foundation on how the brain processes speech cues. This project will bring an intern from Hanyang University (Seoul, Korea) to Toronto to gain hands-on experience and training in conducting and analyzing auditory EEG experiments on English. In 2025, the supervisor visited the home institution to help establish the capability to run auditory experiments locally. The intern will return with skills acquired in Toronto, enabling a wider range of experiments and the application of cutting-edge analytical methods. This initiative will strengthen international exchange between Canada and South Korea, and specifically the University of Toronto and Hanyang University. Beyond academia, the findings will inform educational and intercultural initiatives related to language variation, communication, and implicit bias.

Faculty Supervisor:

Philip Monahan;Yoonjung Kang

Student:

Partner:

Hanyang University

Discipline:

Sociology

Sector:

Education; Other

University:

University of Toronto

Program: