Axel G. Ekström

KTH Royal Institute of Technology | KTH · Department of Speech, Music and Hearing (TMH)

Analysis of nonhuman, great ape vocal behavior may provide insight into the evolu-tion of human speech. Two main impositions prohibit such work. The first and mostobvious is the scarcity of relevant data; even though literature on primate vocalizationstretches back decades, high-quality data are rare and seldom publicly available. Thesecond—far mor...

Every normally developing human infant solves the difficult problem of mapping their native-language phonology, but the neural mechanisms underpinning this behavior remain poorly understood. Here, motor constellation theory, an integrative neurophonological model, is presented, with the goal of explicating this issue. It is assumed that infants’ mo...

This text reviews recent research in phonetic size-sound symbolism – non-arbitrary attributions of size properties to speech acoustic properties. Evidence from a wide range of research works is surveyed, and recent findings from research on the relationships between fundamental frequency, vowel articulation, consonant articulation, phonation type,...

Evidence suggests that human non-verbal speech may be rich in iconicity. Here, we report results from two experiments aimed at testing whether perception of increasing and declining f 0 can be iconically mapped onto motion events. We presented a sample of mixed-nationality participants ( N = 118) with sets of two videos, where one pictured upward m...

It is commonly assumed that algorithmic curation of search results creates filter bubbles, where users’ beliefs are continually reinforced and opposing views are suppressed. However, empirical evidence has failed to support this hypothesis. Instead, it has been suggested that filter bubbles may result from individuals engaging selectively with info...