About

Natasha Warner is a professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Arizona, where she also serves as the Department Head. She holds appointments in the Cognitive Science Program and the Department of East Asian Studies. Her research focuses on phonetics, experimental phonology, and psycholinguistics, with a particular emphasis on reduced, spontaneous speech. Warner directs the Douglass Phonetics Lab, contributing to the study of speech patterns and phonetic phenomena. In addition to her work in phonetics and linguistics, Warner is engaged in language revitalization efforts for the dormant Native American language Mutsun (Costanoan), which was formerly spoken in coastal California. Her language interests include Japanese, Dutch, and Mutsun. She is actively involved in academic and community initiatives related to East Asian studies and language education.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Artificial Intelligence
• Statistics
• Data science
• Epistemology
• Mathematics
• Econometrics
• Psychology

Selected publications

• Realization of just: Speech reduction in a high-frequency word

  Proceedings of meetings on acoustics · 2025-01-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Realization of just: Speech reduction in a high-frequency word

  The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 2025-04-01

  articleSenior author

  Speech communication in conversational contexts often contains word forms distinct from careful speech, as speakers modify or omit segments in high-frequency words, producing reduced pronunciations (Aylett and Turk, 2006; Bybee, 2001; Fidelholz, 1975; Fosler-Lussier and Morgan, 1999; Hooper, 1976; Munson, 2007; Pluymaekers et al., 2005). The present study explores how the high-frequency word “just” in American English is realized with regard to its acoustic features, how the acoustic features of “just” and its reduction differ based on adjacent segment types, and how they vary depending on the predictability of word sequences. Results reveal that “just” is more reduced in duration and vowel articulation when followed by sibilants compared to vowels and other consonants. Preceding sibilants cause less fronting of the vowel’s backness but do not significantly affect duration or vowel height. Additionally, higher word predictability correlates with increased reduction, although specific acoustic cues are not affected by the word predictability. These findings emphasize the systematic, context-dependent nature of speech reduction and support its characterization as a gradient phenomenon (Ernestus and Warner, 2011) with the observed variability in the reduced form of “just.”

  PublisherDOI

• Non-Native Listeners’ Use of Information in Parsing Ambiguous Casual Speech

  Languages · 2025-01-08

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  During conversation, speakers produce reduced speech, and this can create homophones: ‘we were’ and ‘we’re’ can both be realized as [ɚ], and ‘he was’ and ‘he’s’ can be realized as [ɨz]. We investigate the types of information non-native listeners (Dutch L1-English L2) use to perceive the tense of such verbs, making comparisons with previous results from native listeners. The Dutch listeners were almost as successful as natives (average percentage correct for ‘is’/’was’ in the most accurate condition: 81% for Dutch, 88% for natives). The two groups showed many of the same patterns, indicating that both make strong use of whatever acoustic information is available in the signal, even if it is heavily reduced. The Dutch listeners showed one crucial difference: a minimal amount of context around the target, just enough to signal speech rate, did not help Dutch listeners to recover the longer forms, i.e., was/were, from reduced pronunciations. Only the full utterance context (containing syntactic/semantic information such as ‘yesterday’ or another tensed verb) helped Dutch listeners to recover from reduction. They were not able to adjust their criteria based on the surrounding speech rate as native listeners were. This study contributes to understanding how L2 learners parse information from spontaneous speech in a World Englishes setting with inputs from multiple dialects.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Acoustic cues in perception of reduced speech

  The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 2024-03-01

  articleSenior author

  In conversational speech, sounds undergo reduction and deletion, which challenges listeners to decode reduced forms using various cues. Previous research argues for the predominance of acoustic cues in a study of listeners’ perception of reduced speech such as “he’s” vs. “he was”, which can both be realized [ɨz]. Analyzing data from a previous perception experiment (Warner et al., Brain Sci., 2022), this study explores what types of acoustic cues listeners use to process reduced speech. Ambiguous [ɨz] with low second formant (F2) or long duration might be perceived as past due to an additional consonant (/w/) and potential contractions (low F2 as a cue to /w/). Low F2 is expected to result in smaller Bark F2-F1 and larger Bark F3-F2. Current study tests whether the stimuli show acoustic differences in the predicted direction and whether the formant and duration measures correlate with listeners’ identification of tense. It was found that there are no significant acoustic differences between past and present forms due to reduction, but that listeners significantly associated smaller Bark F2-F1 with past tense in singular verbs and longer duration with past tense in plural verbs. This confirms listeners' use of the predicted acoustic cues in perceiving reduced speech.

  PublisherDOI

• Phonetics (An Overview)

  Elsevier eBooks · 2024-01-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Metrical segmentation across dialects

  The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 2024-03-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Norris, McQueen & Cutler (1995) tested the Metrical Segmentation Strategy (MSS; Cutler & Norris, 1988) as part of the spoken-word recognition model Shortlist, using British English stimuli and listeners. We replicate their study using American English listeners, who we exposed to one of two sets of stimuli. One group heard a new set of stimuli recorded in American English, while the other was exposed to the original British English recordings. Norris et al. used a word-spotting task: listeners had to spot words within speech (e.g. “stamp” in [stæmpɪdʒ]). Target words were CVCC (like “champ") or CVC (like “done"), and were followed by a full vowel (e.g. /tʃæmpoʊʃ/) or a reduced vowel (e.g. /tʃæmpəʃ/). The original study found different behavior for CVCC versus CVC targets, with the results suggesting that listeners hypothesize a word onset at the start of a full-vowel strong syllable (the MSS). The results for the current study with American stimuli partially replicate the original findings, showing even more consistent support for the MSS. The results with British stimuli also support the MSS, but with higher error rates. The results indicate that the MSS has a very strong effect even in the difficult setting of cross-dialectal perception.

  PublisherDOI

• Multidimensional Signals and Analytic Flexibility: Estimating Degrees of Freedom in Human-Speech Analyses

  Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science · 2023 · 32 citations

  • Computer Science
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Computer Science

  Recent empirical studies have highlighted the large degree of analytic flexibility in data analysis that can lead to substantially different conclusions based on the same data set. Thus, researchers have expressed their concerns that these researcher degrees of freedom might facilitate bias and can lead to claims that do not stand the test of time. Even greater flexibility is to be expected in fields in which the primary data lend themselves to a variety of possible operationalizations. The multidimensional, temporally extended nature of speech constitutes an ideal testing ground for assessing the variability in analytic approaches, which derives not only from aspects of statistical modeling but also from decisions regarding the quantification of the measured behavior. In this study, we gave the same speech-production data set to 46 teams of researchers and asked them to answer the same research question, resulting in substantial variability in reported effect sizes and their interpretation. Using Bayesian meta-analytic tools, we further found little to no evidence that the observed variability can be explained by analysts’ prior beliefs, expertise, or the perceived quality of their analyses. In light of this idiosyncratic variability, we recommend that researchers more transparently share details of their analysis, strengthen the link between theoretical construct and quantitative system, and calibrate their (un)certainty in their conclusions.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The role of probability and duration in perception of speech sounds

  Speech Communication · 2023-06-01

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Advancements of phonetics in the 21st century: Theoretical and empirical issues of spoken word recognition in phonetic research

  Journal of Phonetics · 2023-10-11 · 6 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Native Listeners’ Use of Information in Parsing Ambiguous Casual Speech

  Brain Sciences · 2022-07-15 · 5 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  In conversational speech, phones and entire syllables are often missing. This can make "he's" and "he was" homophonous, realized for example as [ɨz]. Similarly, "you're" and "you were" can both be realized as [jɚ], [ɨ], etc. We investigated what types of information native listeners use to perceive such verb tenses. Possible types included acoustic cues in the phrase (e.g., in "he was"), the rate of the surrounding speech, and syntactic and semantic information in the utterance, such as the presence of time adverbs such as "yesterday" or other tensed verbs. We extracted utterances such as "So they're gonna have like a random roommate" and "And he was like, 'What's wrong?!'" from recordings of spontaneous conversations. We presented parts of these utterances to listeners, in either a written or auditory modality, to determine which types of information facilitated listeners' comprehension. Listeners rely primarily on acoustic cues in or near the target words rather than meaning and syntactic information in the context. While that information also improves comprehension in some conditions, the acoustic cues in the target itself are strong enough to reverse the percept that listeners gain from all other information together. Acoustic cues override other information in comprehending reduced productions in conversational speech.

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Frequent coauthors

• Anne Cutler

  Western Sydney University

  32 shared

• Benjamin V. Tucker

  Northern Arizona University

  18 shared

• James M. McQueen

  Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics

  18 shared

• Andréa Weber

  16 shared

• Allard Jongman

  University of Kansas

  11 shared

• Mirjam Ernestus

  10 shared

• Takayuki Arai

  Chiba University

  10 shared

• Dan Brenner

  University of Arizona

  9 shared