Research in this laboratory is concerned with understanding the nature of the acoustic structure of speech and how it is perceived by normal hearing adults and children. A central emphasis of this research is the investigation of speech materials that more closely resemble "real world" utterances, i.e., continuous speech utterances in which phonetic segments are co articulated within a prosodic structure. Another theme is the investigation of cross-language differences in speech production (as examined by acoustical analysis) and speech perception. A major project, funded by NSF, investigates the cross-language differences in production and perception of vowels of American English, German, French, Japanese, Russian and Spanish. Other projects examine perception and production patterns of adult second-language learners of English (native speakers of Japanese, Russian, and Spanish). Finally, experiments are currently underway which examine similarities and differences in perception of speech and meaningful (environmental) non-speech acoustic signals.

2007-2011 NSF (BCS-0718340) “Perception of American Vowels by Russian, Spanish, and Japanese Learners of English” (W. Strange, PI; V.L. Shafer co-investigator).
2007 CUNY-GC “Electrophysiological Indices of Speech Perception in First and Second Language (V.L. Shafer and W. Strange, Co-PIs) Equipment grant
2006-09 NIH-NIDCD (F31- DC-008075) “Phonetic & Morphological Processing by L2 Learners” Strange (PI) Franzo F. Law II (predoctoral fellowship).
2006-08 NIH-NIDCD (F31- DC-008470) “Development of Mandarin Lexical Tone Production” Strange (PI), Puisan Wong (predoctoral fellowship).
2004-09 NIH-NICHHD (RO1-HD-04193) “The Neurodevelopmental Basis of Speech" V.L. Shafer (PI), W. Strange (co-investigator).
2007 CUNY Doctoral Student Research Grant. Acquisition of Consonant Clusters by Japanese Learners of English: Interactions of Speech Perception and Production (Mieko Sperbeck).

Strange, W., Bohn, O.-S., Trent, S.A, & Nishi, K. (2004). Acoustic and perceptual similarity of North German and American English vowels. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 115, 1791-1807.
Strange, W., Bohn, O.-S., Nishi, K., & Trent, S.A. (2005). Contextual variation in the acoustic and perceptual similarity of North German and American English vowels. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 118, 1751-1762.
Pruitt, J.S., Jenkins, J.J., & Strange, W. (2006). Training the perception of Hindi dental and retroflex stops by native speakers of American English and Japanese. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 119, 1684-1696.
Jia, G., Strange, W., Wu, Y., Collado, J., & Guan, Q. (2006). Perception and production of English vowels by Mandarin speaker: Age-related differences vary with amount of L2 exposure. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 119, 1118-1130.
Stack, J.,W. Strange, W., Jenkins, J.J., Clarke III, W.D., Trent, S.A. (2006). Perceptual invariance of coarticulated vowels over variations in speaking rate. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 119, 2394-2405.
Strange, W., Weber, A., Levy, E.S., Shafiro, V., Hisagi, M., & Nishi, K (2007). Acoustic variability within and across German, French, and American English vowels: Phonetic context effects. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 122, 1111-1129.
Strange, W. (2007). Cross-language phonetic similarity of vowels: Theoretical and methodological issues. In Bohn, O.-S. & Munro, M.J. (eds), Language experience in second language speech learning: In honor of James Emil Flege. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. pp 35-55.
Levy, E., & Strange, W. (in press, 2007). Perception of French vowels by American English adults with and without French Language Experience, Journal of Phonetics,
Strange, W. & Shafer, V.L. (in press). Speech perception in second language learners: the re-education of selective perception. In Hansen-Edwards, J.G. & Zampini, M.L.(eds). Phonology and Second Language Acquisition. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Nishi, K., Akahane-Yamada, R., Kubo, R., & Strange, W. (2003). Acoustic comparisons of Japanese and English vowels produced by native speakers of Japanese. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 114, 2364 (abstract).
Strange, W., Levy, E., & Lehnhoff Jr., R.J. (2004) Perceptual assimilation of French and German vowels by American English monolinguals: Acoustic similarity does not predict perceptual similarity. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 115, 2606. (abstract)
Strange, W. (2005). Cross-language comparisons of contextual variation in the production and perception of vowels. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, (Invited Talk) Vancouver Meeting, May, 2005
Hisagi, M., Strange, W. Akahane-Yamada, R., & Kubo, R. (2005). Perceptual assimilation and categorial discrimination of American vowels by Japanese listeners. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (Vancouver meeting, May, 2005).
Sperbeck, M., Strange, W., Hisagi, M, & Ito, K. (2005). Training Japanese L2 learners to perceive difficult American vowel contrasts. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (Vancouver meeting, May, 2005).
Strange, W. (2005). Cross-language Similarity of Vowel Inventories. Invited talk at the 1st Satelite Conference on Cross-language Speech Perception. (Vancouver meeting, May, 2005).
Strange, W. (2006). Second-language speech perception: The modification of automatic selective perceptual routines. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 120, 3137.
Law II, F.F., Gilichinskaya, Y.D., Ito, K,., Hisagi, M., Berkowitz, S., Sperbeck, M.N., Monteleone, M., & Strange, W. (2006). Temporal and spectral variablitiy of vowels within an dacross languages with small vowel inventories: Russian, Japanese, and Spanish, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 120, 3296.
Ito, K., Law II, F.F., Sperbeck, M.N., Berkowitz, S., Gilichinskaya, Y.D., Monteleone, M., & Strange, W (2007). Speech discrimination of American vowels by experienced Japanese late L2 learners. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 121, 3073.
Strange, W. (2007). Selective perception, perceptual modes, and automaticity in first- and second-language speech processing. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 122, 2970.
Berkowitz, S., & Strange, W. (2007) Discrimination of lexical tone contrasts in disyllabic nonsense pairs by adult speakers of Mandarin and of English. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 122, 3023
Gilichinskaya, Y. D., Law II, F.F., & Strange, W. (2007) Speeded discrimination of American vowels by experienced Russian learners of English. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 122, 3028.