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The Initiative

Our goal is to foster big-team, collaborative speech science into key topics that represent our shared applied interests and have the potential to bridge the research-practice (or research-policy) divide. 

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Our Team

Our research team is an international network of speech scholars at all stages of their careers who represent diverse geographies, institutions, and areas of expertise within applied speech science. [read more]

Our Philosophy

We are a team that values multi-lab collaborative work with colleagues around the globe. In our work, we engage in open science practices and support transparent, replicable research.

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Projects

Optimizing Perception Learning (OPL)

A multi-site, large-scale data collection and analysis project harnessing the potential of high variability for efficient teaching and learning of second language pronunciation. The project's goals are:

    • Make sites comparable by fixing perception training features
    • Make perception training generalizable by allowing sampling characteristics and target structures to vary
    • Create room for individualization outside of the “core” by allowing researchers to add components a la carte at individual sites

Phase 1

The goal of Phase 1 is to create and describe a large-scale, multi-talker database of speech stimuli to be used in future high-variability training studies (i.e., in Phase 2). The database is envisaged as an open-source repository of various sets of training materials accompanied by detailed specifications of the variability within each set along relevant acoustic/phonetic dimensions.

Phase 2

Phase 2 examines multitalker training using the high-variability training paradigm, building on validated stimulus sets from Phase 1. Participating sites have the freedom to choose their own training target, location, and learner sample, while key training parameters and the number of training sessions stay fixed across sites. Interested in participating in Phase 2? Fill out an interest form!

Highlights

 

OPL Phase 2. Multitalker Training

Interested in participating in OPL's Multitalker Training study (Phase 2)? Fill out an interest form.

 

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Join us at SLRF 2026 in Montreal

On October 3, the PRA team will present the Pronunciation Research Accelerator — a big-team science initiative for second language speech research. If you're at the conference, stop by — we'd love to hear about your experiences with the project.

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