CHANGE OF DATE !  Now on Thursday 8th instead of Wednesday 7th !

Come and meet her in person !

• Université de Montréal, Pavilion Marie-Victorin, Room D-427 : Please register via the Doodle link.

• The lecture will also be available via Zoom and will be recorded. No registration required.  Meeting ID: 857 3142 0090/ Passcode: 657610

Mapping voice(s) and meaning(s)

Abstract: The voice is a cornerstone of communication, integral to identity, social bonding, and aesthetic experience. We constantly perceive and interpret vocal sounds, whether human- or AI-generated. This process may seem trivial because it happens rapidly and efficiently for most of us, but its failure can have serious consequences. Embracing the multifaceted nature of voices, we build on previous and ongoing research to map the relationship between the acoustics of vocal sounds and listeners’ responses, uncovering the cognitive processes involved in making sense of voices.

Bio: Pauline Larrouy-Maestri is a senior researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt, Germany. With a multidisciplinary background spanning pedagogy, psychology, music performance (piano), and speech-language pathology, she completed her PhD in cognitive sciences at ULiège, Belgium (2013) and has explored auditory perception using complementary approaches in research labs across Europe and North America. Together with her team, Pauline investigates how we categorize acoustic information and make sense of sounds, with a particular focus on non-verbal and verbal vocalizations.