2008 CSL Undergraduate Summer Research Stipends

Susan Mallgrave

Third-year undergraduate, Professional & Technical Communication

Kathryn Riley

Professor of English and Chair, Humanities Department

Matthew Bauer

Assistant Professor of Linguistics

Machine-mediated communication and the social and cognitive dimensions that affect it

Susan (center) researched linguistic theory
and other fields.

What happens when humans communicate with and through machines? Successful communication depends not just on hardware and software but on social and cognitive dimensions such as accent, visual cues, and the speaker's attitude toward interacting with a machine. This summer, Susan did a literature review and wrote an annotated bibliography on social and cognitive dimensions of machine-mediated communication, co-supervised by Professors Riley and Bauer.

Reading widely in linguistic theory and other fields, she analyzed nearly 100 articles in peer-reviewed journals and compiled an annotated bibliography of 60 of them. Her work will provide a foundation for further research related to the topic.

Susan focused on three areas: intercultural communication and comprehensibility problems of native and non-native speakers; cognition and the presence or absence of multiple modalities accompanying the speech signal (e.g., not seeing the order-taker at a drive-thru, or receiving conflicting communication cues); and human-technology interaction, including customer anxieties about machine-mediated communication. She was particularly interested in the effect of language attitudes about regional, social, and ethnic aspects of spoken English on speech perception.

"I enjoyed it because I find any issue about communication intensely interesting," said Susan, a straight-A student who last year won the Edwin H. Lewis Prize for Fiction and the Molly Cohen Poetry Prize in the 42nd Annual Writing Contest. Results of the research have practical applications in a variety of interactions involving humans and spoken dialogue systems (computer-generated "language"). Examples include voice-recognition software currently being tested for use in Chicago Transit Authority kiosks to serve patrons who are unable to see screen displays; speaker systems used to communicate with customers at drive-thru windows; and voices used in children's toys.

"The project addresses research questions that have both an intrinsic interest within linguistic and psycholinguistic theory, as well as applications to practical problems within professional and business environments," said Professor Riley.

Photographer: Mindy Sherman, IIT Communications & Marketing

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2008 CSL Undergraduate Summer Research Stipends

Susan Mallgrave

Kathryn Riley

Matthew Bauer

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