Dr. Eddie Chang

Hi.

Sure.

Let's get into this, Andrew, because this is one of the most exciting stuff that's happening right now is understanding how the brain processes these exact questions.

And speech corresponds to the communication signal.

It corresponds to me moving my mouth and my vocal tract to generate words.

And you're hearing these as an auditory signal.

Language is something much broader.

So it refers to what you're extracting from the words that I'm saying.

We call that pragmatics and sort of are you getting the gist of what I'm saying?

There's another aspect of it that we call semantics.

Do you understand the meaning of these words and the sentences?

There's another part that we call syntax, which refers to how the words are assembled in a grammatical form.

So those are all really critical parts of language.

And speech is just one form of language.

There's many other forms like sign language, reading.

Those are all important modalities for reading.

Our research really focuses on this area that we're calling speech.

Again, the production of this audio signal.

which you can't see, but your microphones are picking up.

There are these vibrations in the air that are created by my vocal tract that are picked up by the microphone in the case of this recording, but also picked up by the sensors in your ear, the very tiny vibrations.