Research » Laboratory for the study of Cognition, Action, & Perception of Speech » College of Public Health and Health Professions

CAPS, part of the Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences at the University of Florida College of Public Health and Health Professions, is a multidisciplinary laboratory engaged in teaching and research on the production and perception of speech by humans. We are formally affiliated with the UF Hearing Research Center and the Florida Motor Control Working Group. The lab draws together promising students from across the UF campus to combine principles and tools from engineering and computer science with cognitive, linguistic, and psychological science to understand speech mechanisms and processes.

Current work in the lab is organized into two interdependent axes, one focusing on the neural control, timing and sequencing of speech movements and the contribution of phonological working memory to speech motor sequence learning; the other focusing on complex interactions between speech production and perception and the roles of sensory feedback.

We investigate these topics by drawing on a wide range of methodologies, including acoustic analysis of speech, auditory and visual psychophysics (eye-tracking), kinematic analyses of articulatory movements (EMA), and functional brain imaging (EEG/ERPs, fMRI). The results of such investigations have important implications for theories of speech and language processing, as well as for developmental and acquired disabilities involving speech (e.g., stuttering, apraxia of speech, hearing loss, autism).