Reiko Kataoka
Graduate Student

phonetics, psycholinguistics, speech perception, phonetic basis of sound change, cross-linguistic variations in speech production and speech perception, exemplar-based memory in phonetic categorization, language acquisition, language revitalization
Languages: Japanese
B.A., Linguisitcs (Berkeley '03); M.A., Linguistics (Berkeley '05)

Contact information

Email: kataoka@berkeley.edu

Web site: http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/~kataoka

Mailing address:
Department of Linguistics
1203 Dwinelle Hall #2650
Berkeley, CA 94720-2650

Personal statement

I’m currently working on my dissertation (tentatively titled Sound change in exemplar-based memory), the goal of which is to investigate both universal and language-specific aspects that coexist in speech chain that uniquely define the output of speech perception:  Most of the time listeners decode the phonological representations from acoustic information of the speech signals as they are meant by the speakers—a case of correct perception, but from time to time the listeners construct the mental representations that differ from those of the speakers—a case of misperception.   My approach to this goal is to study physiological and physical constraints that define the limit of possible speech sounds and the way human listeners perceive them, and to explore the effects of individual's knowledge about the fine phonetic details of speech sounds on speech production and perception, which I believe to make each instance of speech communication a unique mixture of physical, biological and cultural interactions.