Alexander Francis

About

Alexander Francis is a Professor in the Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences Department, as well as in Linguistics at Purdue University. His academic training is in linguistics and cognitive psychology, with a primary research focus on speech perception and acoustic phonetics. His work investigates phonetic learning, specifically how perceptual and linguistic experience influence the way listeners attend to speech and speech-like sounds. His research aims to relate behavioral studies on phonetic learning to psychoacoustics and the cognitive neuropsychology of selective attention, audition, and perceptual learning. Professor Francis's research is relevant to understanding how listeners develop native-like perception and production of foreign languages, how individuals with hearing impairments adapt to hearing aids and cochlear implants, and how children acquire native fluency in their first languages. A significant portion of his recent work concentrates on the perception, production, and acquisition of lexical tone contrasts by speakers of tone languages such as Cantonese Chinese, as well as non-tone languages like American English. He is also interested in the interaction between speech perception and speech production skills, and in the development and evaluation of speech technology, particularly speech synthesis. His research combines insights from linguistics, psychoacoustics, and cognitive neuropsychology to better understand speech perception and learning processes.

Research topics

• Psychology
• Audiology
• Computer Science
• Medicine
• Cognitive psychology
• Communication
• Linguistics
• Social psychology
• Internal medicine
• Neuroscience

Selected publications

• Brief Report: Reduced Heart Rate Variability in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

  Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders · 2020 · 49 citations

  DOI

• Listener characteristics differentially affect self-reported and physiological measures of effort associated with two challenging listening conditions

  Attention Perception & Psychophysics · 2021 · 36 citations

  1st authorCorresponding

  Listeners vary in their ability to understand speech in adverse conditions. Differences in both cognitive and linguistic capacities play a role, but increasing evidence suggests that such factors may contribute differentially depending on the listening challenge. Here, we used multilevel modeling to evaluate contributions of individual differences in age, hearing thresholds, vocabulary, selective attention, working memory capacity, personality traits, and noise sensitivity to variability in meas…

  DOI

• The role of attention in immersion: The two–competitor model

  Brain Research Bulletin · 2024-03-08 · 21 citations

  articleOpen access

  Currently, we face an exponentially increasing interest in immersion, especially sensory-driven immersion, mainly due to the rapid development of ideas and business models centered around a digital virtual universe as well as the increasing availability of affordable immersive technologies for education, communication, and entertainment. However, a clear definition of 'immersion', in terms of established neurocognitive concepts and measurable properties, remains elusive, slowing research on the…

  PublisherDOI

• Effects of background noise on autonomic arousal (skin conductance level)

  JASA Express Letters · 2024-01-01 · 11 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  This study was designed to investigate the relationship between sound level and autonomic arousal using acoustic signals similar in level and acoustic properties to common sounds in the built environment. Thirty-three young adults were exposed to background sound modeled on ventilation equipment noise presented at levels ranging from 35 to 75 dBA sound pressure level (SPL) in 2 min blocks while they sat and read quietly. Autonomic arousal was measured in terms of skin conductance level. Results…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Understanding speech in “noise” or free energy minimization in the soundscapes of the anthropocene

  Frontiers in Neuroscience · 2025-03-14 · 5 citations

  articleOpen access

  Listening to speech in the presence of irrelevant sounds is ubiquitous in the modern world, but is generally acknowledged to be both effortful and unpleasant. Here we argue that this problem arises largely in circumstances that our human auditory system has not evolved to accommodate. The soundscapes of the Anthropocene are frequently characterized by an overabundance of sound sources, the vast majority of which are functionally irrelevant to a given listener. The problem of listening to speech…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant R03DC006811

  NIH · $217k · 2008

Frequent coauthors

• Howard C. Nusbaum

  University of Chicago

  25 shared

• Valter Ciocca

  University of British Columbia

  25 shared

• Fernando Llanos

  12 shared

• Olga Dmitrieva

  Purdue University System

  10 shared

• Lian Ma

  Peking University

  9 shared

• Daniel J. Strauß

  Saarland University

  9 shared

• Kimberly M. Fenn

  Michigan State University

  9 shared

• Maria V. Kondaurova

  Google (United States)

  9 shared

Similar researchers at Purdue University

• Laurence B. Leonardh-74
• Cheryl Cookyh-24
• James A. McCannh-20