Laura Dilley is an assistant professor in MSU's Department of Communicative Sciences and Disorders. She will use a stimulus grant of $460,000 from the National Science Foundation to study ways in which humans can better comprehend speech.

Click on an image to view a larger or high-resolution version.

EAST LANSING, Mich. — A Michigan State University researcher is using a federal stimulus grant of more than $460,000 to better understand how humans comprehend speech, work that could have far-reaching implications in the treatment of a number of maladies that include dyslexia and autism.

The focus of the research of Laura Dilley, an assistant professor of communicative sciences and disorders in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences, is how the acoustic properties of speech – voice pitch, loudness and speech rate – contribute to understanding spoken words.

“Pitch, loudness and rate are collectively termed prosody,” Dilley said. “Previously, these prosodic aspects of the speech signal have been assumed to play a minor role in spoken word recognition.”

However, recent research by Dilley and others suggests that prosody can have a very significant effect on how words are understood. For example, recent research by Dilley and her colleagues has shown that just changing the speech rate surrounding a word can cause that word to disappear perceptually.

This research may hold the key to understanding both normal and disordered speech perception. In this regard, Dilley’s work holds the potential for a number of significant advancements in human health, technology and science.

“For example,” she said, “perception or production of voice pitch, loudness or timing are often disrupted in many disorders affecting speech and language, including dyslexia, autism, stuttering and Parkinson’s disease. This work could lead to new insights regarding mechanisms underlying these disorders.”

The work also could lead to improved speech technology applications, including enhanced speech recognition by computer and more natural sounding computer-generated speech.

“When trying to make a computer understand the words you speak to it, you have to be very specific, especially when you’re starting a new word,” Dilley said.

Dilley’s grant is a five-year grant from the National Science Foundation.

For more information on MSU’s funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, visit the Web at http://stimulusfunding.msu.edu/.

###

Michigan State University has been advancing knowledge and transforming lives through innovative teaching, research and outreach for more than 150 years. MSU is known internationally as a major public university with global reach and extraordinary impact. Its 17 degree-granting colleges attract scholars worldwide who are interested in combining education with practical problem solving.