My research focuses on how people understand speech. I’m interested in how understanding speech influences our perception of low-level acoustic input and vice versa. I am particularly interested in the learning processes, such as error-driven learning, involved in speech comprehension and the neural underpinnings of speech perception and learning.
Publications
Selected recent publications
(See my personal website for more)
2020
Nixon, J. S. (2020). Of mice and men: speech sound acquisition as discriminative learning from prediction error, not just statistical tracking. Cognition. 197, 104081. Open access
2019
Jiao, D., Watson, V., Wong, S. G.-J., Gnevsheva, K. & Nixon, J. S. (2019). Age estimation in foreign-accented speech by non-native speakers of English. Speech Communication. 106, 118-126.
2018
Nixon, J. S. (2018). Effective acoustic cue learning is not just statistical, it is discriminative. In Interspeech 2018 – Proceedings of the 19th Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, September 2-6. Hyderabad, India. pp. 1447-1451. DOI: 10.21437/Interspeech.2018-1024
Boll-Avetisyan, N., Nixon, J. S. Lentz, T. O., Liu, L., van Ommen, S., Çöltekin, Ç. and van Rij, J. (2018). Neural response development during distributional learning. In Interspeech 2018 – Proceedings of the 19th Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, September 2-6. Hyderabad, India. pp. 1432-1436. DOI: 10.21437/Interspeech.2018-2072
Nixon, J. S. & Best, C. T. (2018). Acoustic cue variability affects eye movement behaviour during non-native speech perception. In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Speech Prosody, 493-497. June, Poznan. DOI: 10.21437/SpeechProsody.2018-100
Nixon, J. S., Boll-Avetisyan, N., Lentz, T. O., van Ommen, S., Keij, B., Çöltekin, Ç., Liu L. and van Rij, J. (2018). Short-term exposure enhances perception of both between- and within-category acoustic information. In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Speech Prosody, 114-118. June, Poznan. DOI: 10.21437/SpeechProsody.2018-23
2016
Nixon, J. S., van Rij, J., Mok, P., Baayen, R. H., & Chen, Y. (2016). The temporal dynamics of perceptual uncertainty: eye movement evidence from Cantonese segment and tone perception. Journal of Memory and Language. 90, 103-125. DOI: dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2016.03.005
Presentations
Selected recent presentations
(See my personal website for more)
Upcoming: Tomaschek, F. & Nixon, J. S. Learning theory as linguistic theory. Poster presentation at Linguistic Evidence 2020. 13-15 February 2020, Tübingen.
Tomaschek, F., Ramscar, M. & Nixon, J. S. and Statistical and Error-Driven Learning in Random Sequences. Oral presentation at the International Morphological Processing Conference, MoProc 2019. November 4-7. Tübingen.
Nixon, J. S. and Tomaschek, F. (2019). Infant speech sound acquisition as error-driven discriminative learning of the speech signal. Architectures and Mechanisms of Language Processing (AMLaP). September 6-8, 2019. Moscow, Russia.
Tomaschek, F. and Nixon, J. S. (2019). Emerging Structures in Random Data Result in Naive Learning. Oral presentation at Psycholinguistics in Iceland -- Parsing and Prediction. June 19-20, 2019. Reykjavik, Iceland. [Talk presented together with Fabian Tomaschek].
Nixon, J. S. and Tomaschek, F. Learning speech cues from the input. Interdisciplinary Advances in Statistical Learning. June 27-29, 2019. Donostia San Sebastian, Spain.
Tomaschek, F. and Nixon, J. S. Emerging Structures in Random Data Result in Naive Learning. Oral presentation at Psycholinguistics in Iceland -- Parsing and Prediction. June 19-20, 2019. Reykjavik, Iceland.
Nixon, J. S. (2018). The Kamin blocking effect in speech acquisition: non-native cue learning is blocked by already-learned cues. The 11th International Conference on the Mental Lexicon. September 25-28, 2018. Edmonton, Canada.
Awarded: $500 CAD for top-ranked postdoc or PhD presentations at Mental Lexicon 2018.
Nixon, J. S. (2018). Prior learning of acoustic cues blocks learning of new cues in non-native speech acquisition. Architectures and Mechanisms of Language Processing (AMLaP). September 6-9, 2018. Berlin, Germany.
van Rij, J., Nixon, J. S. and Lentz, T. O. (2018). Modelling of mismatch negativity response and non-native statistical learning. Oral presentation at Architectures and Mechanisms of Language Processing (AMLaP), September 6-8, 2018. Berlin, Germany. [Talk presented by Jacolien van Rij].
Nixon, J. S. (2018). Effective acoustic cue learning is not just statistical, it is discriminative. Oral presentation at Interspeech 2018, the 19th Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, September 2-6, 2018. Hyderabad, India.
Boll-Avetisyan, N., Nixon, J. S., Lentz, T. O., Liu, L., van Ommen, S., Çöltekin, Ç. and van Rij, J. (2018). Neural response development during distributional learning. Oral presentation at Interspeech 2018, the 19th Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, September 2-6, 2018. Hyderabad, India.
Nixon, J. S. & Best, C. T. (2018). Acoustic cue variability affects eye movement behaviour during non-native speech perception. In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Speech Prosody, 493-497. June, Poznan. DOI: 10.21437/SpeechProsody.2018-100
Nixon, J. S., Boll-Avetisyan, N., Lentz, T. O., van Ommen, S., Keij, B., Çöltekin, Ç., Liu L. and van Rij, J. (2018). Short-term exposure enhances perception of both between- and within-category acoustic information. In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Speech Prosody, 114-118. June, Poznan. DOI: 10.21437/SpeechProsody.2018-23
Jiao, D., Wong, S. G.-J., Watson, V., Gnevsheva, K. & Nixon, J. S. Sociophonetic cues of age estimation in foreign-accented speech. Sociolinguistic Symposium 22 (SS22). Auckland, New Zealand. 27-30 June, 2018. [Talk presented by Sidney Wong].