Katherine S. Harris[1] is a noted psychologist and speech scientist. She is Distinguished Professor Emerita in Speech and Hearing at the CUNY Graduate Center [2] and a member of the Board of Directors [3] of Haskins Laboratories. She is also the former President of the Acoustical Society of America and Vice President of Haskins Laboratories. Psychology is an academic and applied discipline involving the scientific study of mental processes and behavior. ... The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York (known more commonly as the CUNY Graduate Center or the GC) is the sole doctorate-granting institution of the City University of New York. ... Haskins Laboratories [1] is an independent, international, multidisciplinary community of researchers conducting basic research on spoken and written language. ... The Acoustical Society of America is an international scientific society dedicated to increasing and diffusing the knowledge of acoustics and its practical applications. ... Haskins Laboratories [1] is an independent, international, multidisciplinary community of researchers conducting basic research on spoken and written language. ...

Career

Working with Alvin Liberman, Franklin S. Cooper and colleagues at Haskins Laboratories in the 1950s [4], the Pattern playback, a mechanical speech synthesis device, was used to help uncover the acoustic cues for the perception of phonetic segments (consonants and vowels). Liberman, Harris and colleagues proposed a "motor theory" [5] of speech perception. Harris went on to lead the speech production [6] program at Haskins Laboratories. In the 1960s Harris and colleague Peter MacNeilage [7] were the first researchers in the U.S. to use electromyographic techniques, pioneered at the University of Tokyo, to study the neuromuscular organization of speech. In the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s Katherine Harris continued her pioneering work on speech production with colleagues Gloria Borden, Frederica Bell-Berti[8] and many others. Of particular note is work on coarticulation that examined the phasing and cohesion of articulatory speech gestures. Alvin Liberman (1917-2000) was a psychologist whose ideas set the agenda for fifty years of research in the psychology of speech perception and laid the groundwork for modern computer speech synthesis and the understanding of critical issues in cognitive science. ... Franklin Seaney Cooper (Apr. ... Haskins Laboratories [1] is an independent, international, multidisciplinary community of researchers conducting basic research on spoken and written language. ... The Pattern playback[1][2] is an early talking device that was built by Dr. Franklin S. Cooper and his colleagues, including John M. Borst and Caryl Haskins, at Haskins Laboratories in the late 1940s and completed in 1950. ... Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. ... Phonetic (pho-NET-ic) is a nationwide voicemail-to-text messaging service available for most digital mobile phones in which a subscriber is provided a custom voice mailbox for the purpose of receiving all incoming voice messages as actual transcribed text for reading via short messaging (also known as SMS... Speech perception refers to the processes by which humans are able to interpret and understand the sounds used in language. ... Haskins Laboratories [1] is an independent, international, multidisciplinary community of researchers conducting basic research on spoken and written language. ... Electromyography (EMG) is a medical technique for evaluating and recording physiologic properties of muscles at rest and while contracting. ... The University of Tokyo ), abbreviated as Todai ), is one of the leading research universities in Japan. ... Main Entry: neu·ro·mus·cu·lar Pronunciation: nur-O-m&s-ky&-l&r, nyur- of or relating to nerves and muscles; especially : jointly involving nervous and muscular elements <a neuromuscular junction> ... Coarticulation in phonetics refers to two different phenomena: the assimilation of the place of articulation of one speech sound to that of an adjacent speech sound. ...

Awards

• In 1988 she won Honors of the Association from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, recognizing "contributions to the field of speech, language, and hearing," and the highest honor that the Association gives. [9]
• In 2005 she won the Silver Medal in Speech Communication from the Acoustical Society of America "for research and leadership in speech production." [10]

The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association is a professional association for speech-language pathologists, audiologists, and speech, language, and hearing scientists in the United States and internationally. ... The Acoustical Society of America is an international scientific society dedicated to increasing and diffusing the knowledge of acoustics and its practical applications. ...

References

• Frederica Bell-Berti. Producing Speech: Contemporary Issues, for Katherine Safford Harris. Springer, 1995.
• Gloria J. Borden and Katherine S. Harris. Speech Science Primer: Physiology, & acoustics, and perception of speech. Second Edition. Williams & Williams, Baltimore, MD, 1984.
• Haskins Laboratories. The Science of the Spoken and Written Word. Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, CT, 2005.
• A. M. Liberman, K. S. Harris, H. S. Hoffman & B. C. Griffith. The discrimination of speech sounds within and across phoneme boundaries. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 54, 358 - 368, 1957.

Selected Publications

• Bell-Berti, F., & Harris, K. S. (1979). Anticipatory coarticulation: Some implications from a study of lip rounding. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 65, 1268-1270.
• Bell-Berti, F., & Harris, K. S. (1981). A temporal model of speech production. Phonetica, 38, 9-20.
• Borden, G. J., Harris, K. S., & Oliver, W. (1973). Oral feedback I. Variability of the effect of nerve-block anesthesia upon speech. Journal of Phonetics, 1, 289-295.
• Borden, G. J., Harris, K. S., & Catena, L. (1973). Oral feedback II. An electromyographic study of speech under nerve-block anesthesia. Journal of Phonetics, 1, 297-308.
• Harris, K. S. (1958). Cues for the discrimination of American English fricatives in spoken syllables. Language and Speech, 1, 1-7.
• Harris, K. S., Hoffman, H. S., Liberman, A. M., Delattre, P. C., & Cooper, F. S. (1958). Effect of third-formant transitions on the perception of the voiced stop consonants. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 30, 122-126.
• Harris, K. S., Rosov, R., Cooper, F. S., & Lysaught, G. F. (1964). A multiple suction electrode system. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, 17, 698-700.
• Harris, K. S., Lysaught, G. S., & Schvey, M. M. (1965). Some aspects of the production of oral and nasal stops. Language and Speech, 8, 135-147.
• Harris, K. S. (1970). Physiological measures of speech movements: EMG and fiberoptic studies. ASHA Reports, 5, 271-282.
• Harris, K. S. (1971). Children's language development and articulatory breakdown. In D. L. Horton & J. J. Jenkins (Eds.), Perception of Language (pp. 207-215).
• Harris, K. S. (1972). Silent articulation. Science, 176, 1114-1115.
• Harris, K. S. (1977). The study of articulatory organization: Some negative progress. In M. Sawashima & F. S. Cooper (Eds.), Dynamic aspects of speech production. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 71-82.
• Harris, K. S. (1978). Vowel duration change and its underlying physiological mechanisms. Language and Speech, 21, 354-361.
• Harris, K. S. (1982). Electromyography as a technique for laryngeal investigation. Conference on the assessment of vocal pathology, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, April 1979. ASHA Reports, 11, 70-86.
• Harris, K. S., & Bell-Berti, F. (1984). On consonants and syllable boundaries. In L. Raphael, C. R. Raphael, & M. R. Valdovinos (Eds.), Language and Cognition (pp. 89-95). New York: Plenum.
• Liberman, A. M., Cooper, F. S., Harris, K. S., & MacNeilage, P. F. (1962). A motor theory of speech perception. Proceedings of the Speech Communication Seminar, Stockholm.
• Liberman, A. M., Cooper, F. S., Harris, K. S., MacNeilage, P. F., & Studdert-Kennedy, M. (1967). Some observations on a model for speech perception. In W. Wathen-Dunn (Ed.), Models for the perception of speech and visual form (pp. 68-87). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.