Michael Cohn
Biographic Data
| ID | 166244 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michael Cohn |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michael |
| FAMILY NAME | Cohn |
| SIGNATURE | COHN M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Davis |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4847-1464 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 25 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 65 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 25 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1971 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
“Es una pelota, do you like the ball?”: Pitch in Spanish-English bilingual infant directed speech
The goal of this research is to understand how bilingual and monolingual parents adjust their speech when talking to infants. We examined pitch characteristics of infant-directed speech (IDS) and adult-directed speech (ADS) with Spanish-English bilingual and English monolingual parents and their infants (8–20 months of age). Thirty-eight parent-infant dyads participated in two naturalistic play tasks. Parents spoke with a bilingual researcher to …
Prosodic variation between contexts in infant-directed speech
Speakers consider their listeners and adjust the way they communicate. One well-studied example is the register of infant-directed speech (IDS), which differs acoustically from speech directed to adults. However, little work has explored how parents adjust speech to infants across different contexts. This is important because infants and parents engage in many activities throughout each day. The current study tests whether the properties of IDS i…
Apparent-time variation in the use of multiple cues for perception of anticipatory nasal coarticulation in California English
This study examines apparent-time variation in the use of multiple acoustic cues present on coarticulatorily nasalized vowels in California English. Eighty-nine listeners ranging in age from 18-58 (grouped into 3 apparent-time categories based on year of birth) performed lexical identifications on syllables excised from words with oral and nasal codas from six speakers who produced either minimal (n=3) or extensive (n=3) anticipatory nasal coarti…
Linguistic patterning of laughter in human-socialbot interactions
Laughter is a social behavior that conveys a variety of emotional states and is also intricately intertwined with linguistic communication. As people increasingly engage with voice-activated artificially intelligent (voice-AI) systems, an open question is how laughter patterns during spoken language interactions with technology. In Experiment 1, we collected a corpus of recorded short conversations (~10 min in length) between users ( n = 76) and …
Vocal accommodation to technology: The role of physical form
This study examines participants’ vocal accommodation toward text-to-speech (TTS) voices produced by three devices, varying in the extent to which they embody a human form. Thirty eight speakers shadowed words produced by a male and female TTS voice presented across three physical forms: an Amazon Echo smart speaker (least human-like), Nao robot (slightly more human-like), and a Furhat robot (more human-like). Ninety-six independent raters comple…
Listener beliefs and perceptual learning: Differences between device and human guises
Listeners have a remarkable ability to adapt to novel speech patterns, such as a new accent or an idiosyncratic pronunciation. In almost all of the previous studies examining this phenomenon, the participating listeners had reason to believe that the speech signal was produced by a human being. However, people are increasingly interacting with voice-activated artificially intelligent (voice-AI) devices that produce speech using text-to-speech (TT…
Face-Masked Speech Intelligibility: The Influence of Speaking Style, Visual Information, and Background Noise
The current study investigates the intelligibility of face-masked speech while manipulating speaking style, presence of visual information about the speaker, and level of background noise. Speakers produced sentences while in both face-masked and non-face-masked conditions in clear and casual speaking styles. Two online experiments presented the sentences to listeners in multi-talker babble at different signal-to-noise ratios: −6 dB SNR and −3 dB…
Acoustic-phonetic properties of Siri- and human-directed speech
Millions of people engage in spoken interactions with voice activated artificially intelligent (voice-AI) systems in their everyday lives. This study explores whether speakers have a voice-AI-specific register, relative to their speech toward an adult human. Furthermore, this study tests if speakers have targeted error correction strategies for voice-AI and human interlocutors. In a pseudo-interactive task with pre-recorded Siri and human voices,…
Age- and Gender-Related Differences in Speech Alignment Toward Humans and Voice-AI
Speech alignment is where talkers subconsciously adopt the speech and language patterns of their interlocutor. Nowadays, people of all ages are speaking with voice-activated, artificially-intelligent (voice-AI) digital assistants through phones or smart speakers. This study examines participants’ age (older adults, 53–81 years old vs. younger adults, 18–39 years old) and gender (female and male) on degree of speech alignment during shadowing of (…
Prosodic Differences in Human- and Alexa-Directed Speech, but Similar Local Intelligibility Adjustments
The current study tests whether individuals ( n = 53) produce distinct speech adaptations during pre-scripted spoken interactions with a voice-AI assistant (Amazon’s Alexa) relative to those with a human interlocutor. Interactions crossed intelligibility pressures (staged word misrecognitions) and emotionality (hyper-expressive interjections) as conversation-internal factors that might influence participants’ intelligibility adjustments in Alexa-…
Speech Rate Adjustments in Conversations With an Amazon Alexa Socialbot
This paper investigates users’ speech rate adjustments during conversations with an Amazon Alexa socialbot in response to situational (in-lab vs. at-home) and communicative (ASR comprehension errors) factors. We collected user interaction studies and measured speech rate at each turn in the conversation and in baseline productions (collected prior to the interaction). Overall, we find that users slow their speech rate when talking to the bot, rel…
Intelligibility of face-masked speech depends on speaking style: Comparing casual, clear, and emotional speech
Feasibility and Acceptability of an Online Positive Affect Intervention for Those Living with Comorbid HIV Depression
Reduced reward-driven eating accounts for the impact of a mindfulness-based diet and exercise intervention on weight loss: Data from the SHINE randomized controlled trial
How Positive Emotions Build Physical Health: Perceived Positive Social Connections Account for the Upward Spiral Between Positive Emotions and Vagal Tone
The mechanisms underlying the association between positive emotions and physical health remain a mystery. We hypothesize that an upward-spiral dynamic continually reinforces the tie between positive emotions and physical health and that this spiral is mediated by people’s perceptions of their positive social connections. We tested this overarching hypothesis in a longitudinal field experiment in which participants were randomly assigned to an int…
A positive affect intervention for people experiencing health-related stress: Development and non-randomized pilot test
In this article we present background, theoretical rationale, and pilot data on the development of an intervention designed to increase positive affect in people living with serious health-related stress. This proof-of-concept study demonstrated that a multiple-component positive affect intervention is feasible and acceptable for people newly diagnosed with HIV. Retention in the intervention and adherence to home practice were high. Participants …
Happiness unpacked: Positive emotions increase life satisfaction by building resilience
Happiness-a composite of life satisfaction, coping resources, and positive emotions-predicts desirable life outcomes in many domains. The broaden-and-build theory suggests that this is because positive emotions help people build lasting resources. To test this hypothesis, the authors measured emotions daily for 1 month in a sample of students (N = 86) and assessed life satisfaction and trait resilience at the beginning and end of the month. Posit…
Open hearts build lives: Positive emotions, induced through loving-kindness meditation, build consequential personal resources
B. L. Fredrickson's (1998, 2001) broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions asserts that people's daily experiences of positive emotions compound over time to build a variety of consequential personal resources. The authors tested this build hypothesis in a field experiment with working adults (n = 139), half of whom were randomly-assigned to begin a practice of loving-kindness meditation. Results showed that this meditation practice produced …
Linguistic Markers of Psychological Change Surrounding September 11, 2001
The diaries of 1,084 U.S. users of an on-line journaling service were downloaded for a period of 4 months spanning the 2 months prior to and after the September 11 attacks. Linguistic analyses of the journal entries revealed pronounced psychological changes in response to the attacks. In the short term, participants expressed more negative emotions, were more cognitively and socially engaged, and wrote with greater psychological distance. After 2…
Archiving and Technology
A Comment on Roberta Fiske‐Rusciano's Review of Crumbling Walls and Tarnished Ideals: An Ethnography of East Germany before and after Unification , by Hans Baer
The Jews in Germany 1945-1993: The Building of a Minority
Most Jews who now live in Germany have lived elsewhere. They are neither the remnant of those who survived the Holocaust nor those who are in transit to Israel or the United States. They are a disparate but vibrant and growing community of over 80,000 people. Forty thousand of them are members of official Jewish communities in today's Germany. Because of the Nazi past, this proportionately small number of individuals plays an out-of-scale role in…
Linguistic Racism
Evidence of Children at Revolutionary War Sites
No abstract available at this time
Filing Fee for Resolutions
Open hearts build lives: Positive emotions, induced through loving-kindness meditation, build consequential personal resources
B. L. Fredrickson's (1998, 2001) broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions asserts that people's daily experiences of positive emotions compound over time to build a variety of consequential personal resources. The authors tested this build hypothesis in a field experiment with working adults (n = 139), half of whom were randomly-assigned to begin a practice of loving-kindness meditation. Results showed that this meditation practice produced …
A positive affect intervention for people experiencing health-related stress: Development and non-randomized pilot test
In this article we present background, theoretical rationale, and pilot data on the development of an intervention designed to increase positive affect in people living with serious health-related stress. This proof-of-concept study demonstrated that a multiple-component positive affect intervention is feasible and acceptable for people newly diagnosed with HIV. Retention in the intervention and adherence to home practice were high. Participants …
Acoustic-phonetic properties of Siri- and human-directed speech
Millions of people engage in spoken interactions with voice activated artificially intelligent (voice-AI) systems in their everyday lives. This study explores whether speakers have a voice-AI-specific register, relative to their speech toward an adult human. Furthermore, this study tests if speakers have targeted error correction strategies for voice-AI and human interlocutors. In a pseudo-interactive task with pre-recorded Siri and human voices,…
Evidence of Children at Revolutionary War Sites
No abstract available at this time
Reduced reward-driven eating accounts for the impact of a mindfulness-based diet and exercise intervention on weight loss: Data from the SHINE randomized controlled trial
Listener beliefs and perceptual learning: Differences between device and human guises
Listeners have a remarkable ability to adapt to novel speech patterns, such as a new accent or an idiosyncratic pronunciation. In almost all of the previous studies examining this phenomenon, the participating listeners had reason to believe that the speech signal was produced by a human being. However, people are increasingly interacting with voice-activated artificially intelligent (voice-AI) devices that produce speech using text-to-speech (TT…
Filing Fee for Resolutions
Evidence of Children at Revolutionary War Sites
No abstract available at this time
The Jews in Germany 1945-1993: The Building of a Minority
Most Jews who now live in Germany have lived elsewhere. They are neither the remnant of those who survived the Holocaust nor those who are in transit to Israel or the United States. They are a disparate but vibrant and growing community of over 80,000 people. Forty thousand of them are members of official Jewish communities in today's Germany. Because of the Nazi past, this proportionately small number of individuals plays an out-of-scale role in…
Linguistic Racism
A Comment on Roberta Fiske‐Rusciano's Review of Crumbling Walls and Tarnished Ideals: An Ethnography of East Germany before and after Unification , by Hans Baer
Linguistic Markers of Psychological Change Surrounding September 11, 2001
The diaries of 1,084 U.S. users of an on-line journaling service were downloaded for a period of 4 months spanning the 2 months prior to and after the September 11 attacks. Linguistic analyses of the journal entries revealed pronounced psychological changes in response to the attacks. In the short term, participants expressed more negative emotions, were more cognitively and socially engaged, and wrote with greater psychological distance. After 2…
Archiving and Technology
Open hearts build lives: Positive emotions, induced through loving-kindness meditation, build consequential personal resources
B. L. Fredrickson's (1998, 2001) broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions asserts that people's daily experiences of positive emotions compound over time to build a variety of consequential personal resources. The authors tested this build hypothesis in a field experiment with working adults (n = 139), half of whom were randomly-assigned to begin a practice of loving-kindness meditation. Results showed that this meditation practice produced …
Happiness unpacked: Positive emotions increase life satisfaction by building resilience
Happiness-a composite of life satisfaction, coping resources, and positive emotions-predicts desirable life outcomes in many domains. The broaden-and-build theory suggests that this is because positive emotions help people build lasting resources. To test this hypothesis, the authors measured emotions daily for 1 month in a sample of students (N = 86) and assessed life satisfaction and trait resilience at the beginning and end of the month. Posit…
A positive affect intervention for people experiencing health-related stress: Development and non-randomized pilot test
In this article we present background, theoretical rationale, and pilot data on the development of an intervention designed to increase positive affect in people living with serious health-related stress. This proof-of-concept study demonstrated that a multiple-component positive affect intervention is feasible and acceptable for people newly diagnosed with HIV. Retention in the intervention and adherence to home practice were high. Participants …
How Positive Emotions Build Physical Health: Perceived Positive Social Connections Account for the Upward Spiral Between Positive Emotions and Vagal Tone
The mechanisms underlying the association between positive emotions and physical health remain a mystery. We hypothesize that an upward-spiral dynamic continually reinforces the tie between positive emotions and physical health and that this spiral is mediated by people’s perceptions of their positive social connections. We tested this overarching hypothesis in a longitudinal field experiment in which participants were randomly assigned to an int…
Reduced reward-driven eating accounts for the impact of a mindfulness-based diet and exercise intervention on weight loss: Data from the SHINE randomized controlled trial
Feasibility and Acceptability of an Online Positive Affect Intervention for Those Living with Comorbid HIV Depression
Age- and Gender-Related Differences in Speech Alignment Toward Humans and Voice-AI
Speech alignment is where talkers subconsciously adopt the speech and language patterns of their interlocutor. Nowadays, people of all ages are speaking with voice-activated, artificially-intelligent (voice-AI) digital assistants through phones or smart speakers. This study examines participants’ age (older adults, 53–81 years old vs. younger adults, 18–39 years old) and gender (female and male) on degree of speech alignment during shadowing of (…
Prosodic Differences in Human- and Alexa-Directed Speech, but Similar Local Intelligibility Adjustments
The current study tests whether individuals ( n = 53) produce distinct speech adaptations during pre-scripted spoken interactions with a voice-AI assistant (Amazon’s Alexa) relative to those with a human interlocutor. Interactions crossed intelligibility pressures (staged word misrecognitions) and emotionality (hyper-expressive interjections) as conversation-internal factors that might influence participants’ intelligibility adjustments in Alexa-…
Speech Rate Adjustments in Conversations With an Amazon Alexa Socialbot
This paper investigates users’ speech rate adjustments during conversations with an Amazon Alexa socialbot in response to situational (in-lab vs. at-home) and communicative (ASR comprehension errors) factors. We collected user interaction studies and measured speech rate at each turn in the conversation and in baseline productions (collected prior to the interaction). Overall, we find that users slow their speech rate when talking to the bot, rel…
Intelligibility of face-masked speech depends on speaking style: Comparing casual, clear, and emotional speech
Face-Masked Speech Intelligibility: The Influence of Speaking Style, Visual Information, and Background Noise
The current study investigates the intelligibility of face-masked speech while manipulating speaking style, presence of visual information about the speaker, and level of background noise. Speakers produced sentences while in both face-masked and non-face-masked conditions in clear and casual speaking styles. Two online experiments presented the sentences to listeners in multi-talker babble at different signal-to-noise ratios: −6 dB SNR and −3 dB…
Acoustic-phonetic properties of Siri- and human-directed speech
Millions of people engage in spoken interactions with voice activated artificially intelligent (voice-AI) systems in their everyday lives. This study explores whether speakers have a voice-AI-specific register, relative to their speech toward an adult human. Furthermore, this study tests if speakers have targeted error correction strategies for voice-AI and human interlocutors. In a pseudo-interactive task with pre-recorded Siri and human voices,…
Vocal accommodation to technology: The role of physical form
This study examines participants’ vocal accommodation toward text-to-speech (TTS) voices produced by three devices, varying in the extent to which they embody a human form. Thirty eight speakers shadowed words produced by a male and female TTS voice presented across three physical forms: an Amazon Echo smart speaker (least human-like), Nao robot (slightly more human-like), and a Furhat robot (more human-like). Ninety-six independent raters comple…
Listener beliefs and perceptual learning: Differences between device and human guises
Listeners have a remarkable ability to adapt to novel speech patterns, such as a new accent or an idiosyncratic pronunciation. In almost all of the previous studies examining this phenomenon, the participating listeners had reason to believe that the speech signal was produced by a human being. However, people are increasingly interacting with voice-activated artificially intelligent (voice-AI) devices that produce speech using text-to-speech (TT…
Apparent-time variation in the use of multiple cues for perception of anticipatory nasal coarticulation in California English
This study examines apparent-time variation in the use of multiple acoustic cues present on coarticulatorily nasalized vowels in California English. Eighty-nine listeners ranging in age from 18-58 (grouped into 3 apparent-time categories based on year of birth) performed lexical identifications on syllables excised from words with oral and nasal codas from six speakers who produced either minimal (n=3) or extensive (n=3) anticipatory nasal coarti…
Linguistic patterning of laughter in human-socialbot interactions
Laughter is a social behavior that conveys a variety of emotional states and is also intricately intertwined with linguistic communication. As people increasingly engage with voice-activated artificially intelligent (voice-AI) systems, an open question is how laughter patterns during spoken language interactions with technology. In Experiment 1, we collected a corpus of recorded short conversations (~10 min in length) between users ( n = 76) and …
“Es una pelota, do you like the ball?”: Pitch in Spanish-English bilingual infant directed speech
The goal of this research is to understand how bilingual and monolingual parents adjust their speech when talking to infants. We examined pitch characteristics of infant-directed speech (IDS) and adult-directed speech (ADS) with Spanish-English bilingual and English monolingual parents and their infants (8–20 months of age). Thirty-eight parent-infant dyads participated in two naturalistic play tasks. Parents spoke with a bilingual researcher to …
Prosodic variation between contexts in infant-directed speech
Speakers consider their listeners and adjust the way they communicate. One well-studied example is the register of infant-directed speech (IDS), which differs acoustically from speech directed to adults. However, little work has explored how parents adjust speech to infants across different contexts. This is important because infants and parents engage in many activities throughout each day. The current study tests whether the properties of IDS i…
Psychology (17 works) · Computer Science (13 works) · Phonetics and Phonology Research (9 works) · Linguistics (8 works) · Speech recognition (7 works) · Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction (6 works) · Speech and dialogue systems (6 works) · Communication (5 works) · Perception (5 works) · Social Psychology (5 works)