Connie Porcaro, Ph.D.

Dr. Porcaro’s research interests fall generally in the area of speech perception – including how listeners understand speakers who have motor speech or voice disorders. Her studies often begin with recordings of speakers with reduced intelligibility, which can be evaluated perceptually using a listener’s ears and having them write down what they hear. Or these recordings can be analyzed acoustically using computerized speech lab similar to the waveform and spectrogram programs which visually display what is heard (similar to the photo you see here). Dr. Porcaro is particularly interested in how listeners and speakers can work together as a team to use context, visual information or other listener strategies to improve communication.