Main Content

Overview

The phonetic research conducted at the Philipps-University Marburg has two essential foci. Mathias Scharinger pursues an interdisciplinary account within Neurophonetics, attempting to use neuroscientific methods in order to answer classical phonetic research questions. Gea de Jong (together with Roland Kehrein) represents the area of Forensic Phonetics. Current themes in this area relate to voice analyses and line-ups. Mathias Scharinger and Gea de Jong are also in close collaboration and exchange of ideas. One goal is to mutually benefit from methods and insights in the respective specialized fields of phonetics, perhaps arriving at a forensic neurophonetics. 

Current research projects

Graduiertenkolleg

Within the  Research Training Group (RTG) 2700 »Dynamics and stability of linguistic representations« we are investigating the effect of voice information onto the processing of speech sounds. The goal is to define representations that are adequate regarding the dynamics and interaction of voice and speech information. 

Project A1 of cohort 1 has finished. Paula Rinke has worked on electrophysiological indices of voice-speech interactions in the vowel space since spring 2022. Her work resulted in the following publications:

  • Gropp, M., Hoffmeister, T., Höhler, F., & Rinke, P. (2023). Mikro- und Makrobeschreibungen sprachlicher Repräsentationen. Ein- und Ausblicke des Marburger Graduiertenkollegs. Sprachspuren: Berichte aus dem Deutschen Sprachatlas, 3(4). https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.57712/2023-04 
  • Hintz, F., Cysouw, M., Domahs, U., Fischer, H., Funk, J., Ganswindt, B., Gerards, J., Gropp, M., Hoffmeister, T., Heinzmann, A., Kauschke, C., Krapp, M. L., Lameli, A., Leonidou, A. D., Nopens, S., Rinke, P., Schmidt, J. E., Schütze, C., Spina, N., Thiele, D., & Scharinger, M. (2025). Rethinking linguistic representations: Typological and neurocognitive perspectives on stability and change. OSF. https://doi.org/https://osf.io/n5vpg_v1 
  • Lavan, N., Rinke, P., & Scharinger, M. (2024). The time course of person perception from voices in the brain. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 121(26), e2318361121. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2318361121 
  • Rinke, P., Lavan, N., & Scharinger, M. (2023). Interactions of speech and speaker processing in early evoked components. In R. Skarnitzl & J. Volin (Eds.), Proceedings of the 20th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (pp. 3992–3996). Guarant International. 
  • Rinke, P., Schmidt, T., Beier, K., Kaul, R., & Scharinger, M. (2022). Rapid pre-attentive processing of a famous speaker: Electrophysiological effects of Angela Merkel's voice. Neuropsychologia, 173, 108312. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2022.108312

Project A of cohort II has started. Leah Neiber is working on the processing of ambiguous voices. She is particularly interested in the influence of indiviual experience with gender diversity. 

Forschungsgruppe

Within the Research Unit (RU) 5757 »Weak Elements: Acquisition, Processing and Modality«, two projects with phonetic foci are included.

WE-01: Distribution of reduced syllables: Optimized for dynamic attending? [Link via Phonetics]

WE-05: Unlearning distributions of weak elements: Evidence from German-Turkish learners of L3 French [Link via Phonetics]

Further research projects

Affiliated with the research group are two further projects:

  • Voice features in psychological diseases [Dissertation Medicine]
  • Vowel perception with missing formants [Fulbright Project]