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Randy L. Diehl, Ph.D.
Professor and David Bruton Jr. Regents Chair in Liberal Arts

VITA Email: diehl@psy.utexas.edu Phone: 232-8058 Lab: 471-0693 Office: SEA 4.234 Lab: SEA 4.122(A-E) Auditory Cognition and Speech Perception Lab See also Center for Perceptual Systems, Cognition and Perception

Randy Diehl received his Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Minnesota. He is a Professor in the area of Cognition and Perception and is a member of the Center for Perceptual Systems. Diehl's research focuses on the perception and production of speech sounds and on auditory category learning. Various methods are used including: acoustic analysis of natural speech, perceptual identification and discrimination of synthetic speech stimuli and of analogous non-speech stimuli, computational modeling of the representation of speech sounds in the auditory nerve and estimation of auditory distances among sounds, simulations of preferred speech sound inventories using a criterion of maximal auditory distance. We are currently applying Bayesian statistical decision theory in the analysis of tasks that involve learning of novel auditory categories (including both non-speech categories and second language sound categories) as well as tasks that involve recognition of sounds from one's first language.

Courses

UNDERGRADUATE:

PSY 301, Introduction to Psychology
PSY 359H and PSY 379H, Psychology Honors Research

GRADUATE:

PSY 387R, Fundamentals of Cognition
PSY 394U, Speech Perception
PSY 394U, History of Psychology

Selected Publications:

Diehl, R.L. (2000). Searching for an auditory description of vowel categories. Phonetica, 57, 267-274.

Diehl, R.L., Molis, M.R., & Castleman, W.A. (2001). Adaptive design of sound systems: Some auditory considerations. In K. Johnson & E. Hume (eds.), The Role of Perceptual Phenomena in Phonological Theory (pp. 123-139). San Diego: Academic Press.

Maddox, W.T., Diehl, R.L., & Molis, M.R. (2001). Generalizing a neuropsychological model of visual categorization to auditory categorization of vowels. In R. Smits, J. Kingston, T.M. Nearey & R. Zondervan (eds.), Proceedings of the Workshop on Speech Recognition as pattern Classification, Nijmegen, July 11-13, 85-90.

Breier, J.I., Gray, L., Fletcher, J.M., Diehl, R.L., Klaas, P., Foorman, B.R., & Molis, M.R. (2001). Perception of voice and tone onset time continua in children with dyslexia with and without attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder.  Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 80, 245-270.

Maddox, W.T., Molis, M.R., & Diehl, R.L. (2002). Generalizing a neuropsychological model of visual categorization to auditory categorization of vowels.  Perception & Psychophysics, 64, 584-597.

Geisler, W.S. & Diehl, R.L. (2002). Bayesian natural selection and the evolution of perceptual systems.  Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London: Biological Science, 357, 419-448.

Wong, P.C.M. & Diehl, R.L. (2002). How can the lyrics of a song in a tone language be understood.  Psychology of Music, 30, 202-209.

Wong, P.C.M. & Diehl, R.L. (2003). Perceptual normalization for inter- and intra-talker variation in Cantonese.  Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 46, 413-421.

Geisler, W.S. & Diehl, R.L. (2003). A Bayesian approach to the evolution of perceptual and cognitive systems.  Cognitive Science, 118, 1-24.

Papanicolaou, A.C., Simos, P.G., Castillo, E., Breier, J.I., Davis, R.N., & Diehl, R.L. (2003). Differential brain activation patterns during perception of voice and tone onset time series: A MEG study.  Neuroimage, 18, 448-459.

Diehl, R.L., Lindblom, B., & Creeger, C.P. (2003). Increasing realism of auditory representations yields further insights into vowel phonetics.  Proceedings of the 15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Vol. 2, pp. 1381-1384. Adelaide: Causal Publications.

Diehl, R.L., Lotto, A.J., & Holt, L.L. (2004). Speech Perception.  Annual Review of Psychology, 55, 06.149-179.

Diehl, R.L. & Lindblom, B. (2004). Explaining the structure of feature and phoneme inventories. In S. Greenberg, W. Ainsworth, A. Popper, & R. Fay (eds.), Speech Processing in the Auditory System (pp. 101-162). New York: Springer-Verlag.

Holt, L.L., Lotto, A.J., & Diehl, R.L. (2004). Auditory discontinuities interact with categorization: Implications for speech perception.  Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 116, 1763-1773.

Wong, P.C.M, Parsons, L.M., Martinez, M., & Diehl, R.L. (2004). The role of the insular cortex in pitch pattern perception: The effect of linguistic contexts.  Journal of Neuroscience, 24, 9153-9160.

Lotto, A.J., M. Sato, & Diehl, R.L. (2004, in press). Mapping the task for the second language learner: The case of Japanese acquisition of /r/ and /l/. To appear in a Festschrift volume in honor of Kenneth Stevens.