Perception, Attention, and Awareness in Perceptual-Motor Learning:
Emphasis Voice and Speech
Virtual Conference
July 12, 2026
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
This one-day course will address contemporary questions in perception, attention, and awareness in perceptual-motor learning with an emphasis on voice and speech learning. A conceptual framework for the course lies with the dual-process model of learning and memory, which posits qualitatively different sets of learning and memory processes for declarative (explicit) vs. procedural (implicit) learning, the latter in turn linked to perceptual-motor learning. Critical questions addressed in this course regard the role of perception, attention, and awareness in procedural and specifically perceptual-motor learning, with an emphasis on voice and speech models. Corollary emphases are current trends in the contemporary science of perception and appreciation of automatic vs. controlled (conscious) processes in perceptual-motor learning.
Please review the Perceptual PDF for additional details and terms.
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
As a result of participating in this course, participants will demonstrate knowledge of:
- Contemporary cognitive models of human perception
- Contemporary computational models of automatic processes in speech and voice motor control
- The role of perception and awareness in fluent speech
- Neural systems underlying reflective and reflexive speech learning
- Anticipation and prediction in skilled performance and learning
- Contemporary perspectives on the role of perception, attention, and awareness in perceptual-motor learning (emphasis voice and speech)
ASSESSMENT OF COURSE OBJECTIVES:
Course objectives will be assessed with a post-course test on presentation contents. A grade of 80% or greater will be considered an indicator of sufficient knowledge acquisition.
TIMED AGENDA (ALL TIMES EASTERN DAYLIGHT):
9:30-10:00 Kittie Verdolini Abbott, PhD, CCC-SLP, PAVA-RV, MDiv: Welcome and introduction to the problem
10:00-10:45 Helene Intraub, PhD: What is perception? Historical and Contemporary Perspectives.
10:45-11:30 Frank Guenther, PhD, MS: Neural dynamics underlying selection, initiation, and execution of speech motor programs.
11:30-12:15 Evan Usler, PhD: The role of perception, action, and awareness in fluent behavior.
12:15-1:00 Bharath Chandrasekaran, PhD: Neural systems underlying reflective and reflexive speech learning.
1:00-1:30 Break
1:30-2:15 Tim Lee (Kinesiology, McMasters): Anticipation and Prediction in Skilled Performance and Learning
2:15-3:00 Panel
3:00 Adjourn
Please note: Instructor biographies are below the Signup and Payment forms.
Signup Form
Perceptual Course Registration Form
Ordering
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$49.00 – $99.00Select options
SPEAKERS:
Dr. Kittie Verdolini Abbott is Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders and Linguistics and Cognitive Science at the University of Delaware. She completed her master’s degree in Speech and Hearing Sciences at Indiana University and her PhD in Experimental Psychology/Cognitive Science at Washington University. Her prior faculty appointments include Assistant Professor of Speech Pathology and Audiology at the University of Iowa, Assistant Professor of Otolaryngology at Harvard Medical School, and Associate and Full Professor at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research has spanned topics ranging from hydration to exercise physiology, wound healing, emotions, cognitive processes in perceptual-motor learning, and clinical trials in voice. Her work has been supported by the National Institutes of Health since 1997. Her early background in performing voice has motivated much of her clinical and research programs.
Dr. Helene Intraub is Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of Delaware. She and her students conduct research on visual scene perception, imagination and memory, as well as haptic and bimodal representation. They study constructive memory errors, and what these reveal about the organizing structures that underlie perception of objects and scenes. Although the Spatial Cognition Lab primarily focuses on adult cognition, she and her students also take a developmental perspective on these topics in research at the University's Early Learning Center.
Dr. Intraub is a fellow at the Association for Psychological Science and the Psychonomic Society. Her research has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health.
Dr. Frank Guenther is Professor of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences at Boston University, Faculty in the Harvard/MIT Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology Program, Research Affiliate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Visiting Scientist at Massachusetts General Hospital. His research focuses on the neural computations underlying speech production, communication disorders, and brain-computer interfaces for speech restoration. Dr. Guenther is internationally recognized as the creator of the DIVA model, a leading computational framework for understanding speech motor control and its disruption in disorders such as stuttering and apraxia of speech. His work integrates computational modeling, behavioral data, and neuroimaging to study how the brain plans and executes speech. His research is funded by the National Institutes of Health with past funding also from the National Science Foundation.
Dr. Evan Usler is Assistant Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of Delaware. He completed his Bachelor’s degree in International Relations at Boston University, his MLIS in Library and Information Studies and his PMA in Public Administration at the University of Rhode, and his PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience at Purdue University. His research interests center on quantification of speech motor performance and fluency, the neurophysiology of speech production including the role of language, emotion, and cognition, motor speech and fluency disorders (stuttering and cluttering), and oromotor development of speech and chewing.
Dr. Bharath Chandrasekaran is the Ralph and Jean Sundin Professor and Chair of the Roxelyn and Richard Pepper Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Northwestern University. Dr. Chandrasekaran trained as a Speech-Language Pathologist and Audiologist in India before earning his Ph.D. in Integrative Neuroscience from Purdue University in 2008. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Northwestern University before joining the University of Texas at Austin in 2010. His research program employs a systems neuroscience approach to investigate the computations, maturational constraints, and plasticity underlying auditory signals such as speech and music. Over the past two decades, his lab has utilized cutting-edge behavioral, multi-modal neuroimaging, and modeling-based approaches to achieve a computational, algorithmic, and implementation-level understanding of how sounds are represented and mapped to behaviorally relevant constructs in the human brain. His research program is currently supported by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.
Dr. Tim Lee is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Kinesiology at McMaster University. His broader interests have centered on motor learning and motor control. He has published extensively in motor behavior and psychology journals for more than four decades and is widely known as co-author of the seminal text Motor Control and Learning: A Behavioral Emphasis. His research has been influential along numerous lines including contextual interference, distributed practice, feedback scheduling and desirable difficulties in training. His scholarship has shaped contemporary understanding of how practice structure, feedback, attention, and task difficult influence the acquisition, retention, and transfer of movement skills across sport, rehabilitation, and everyday action. His research has been continuously funded by the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada since 1984.