Joe Toscano
Associate Professor, Dept. of Psychological & Brain Sciences
Director, Cognitive Science Program
Villanova University
I'm an Associate Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences and Director of the Cognitive Science Program at Villanova University. My research investigates questions about perception and language processing, and our group studies these processes using a combination of computational, cognitive neuroscience, and behavioral techniques. I teach graduate and undergraduate courses in psychology, neuroscience, and cognitive science, including a laboratory course on speech perception for non-science majors.
Contact Info
Email: joseph.toscano@villanova.edu
Phone: 610-519-4755
Office: M52 Tolentine Hall
Lab: 231 Tolentine Hall
Education and Academic Positions
- Associate Professor (2021-present), Dept. of Psychological
and Brain Sciences, Villanova University
- Director (2020-present), Cognitive Science Program, Villanova University
- Assistant Professor (2014-2021), Dept. of Psychological
and Brain Sciences, Villanova University
- Postdoctoral Fellow (2011-2014), Beckman Institute for Advanced
Science and Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
(Collaborators: Susan Garnsey, Jont Allen, Duane Watson, Sarah
Brown-Schmidt, Charissa Lansing, Monica Fabiani, Gabriele Gratton)
- Ph.D., Psychology—Cognition and Perception (2005-2011),
University of Iowa (Advisor: Bob McMurray)
- B.S., Brain and Cognitive Sciences (2001-2005), University of
Rochester (Advisor: Mike Tanenhaus)
Research
My research focuses on questions about speech and language processing:
- How do human listeners recognize speech accurately despite variability
in the acoustic signal?
- How does this ability emerge over development, and how malleable is it in adulthood?
- How can we develop speech-based tests to measure hearing difficulty using behavioral
and/or neural responses?
To answer these questions, we use techniques that allow us to study spoken word recognition as it happens. These include cognitive neuroscience methods that capture early perceptual processes and eye-tracking approaches that measure lexical activation as the speech signal unfolds. We use these data to inform computational models of speech perception that address questions about unsupervised statistical learning and speech development.
For more information, check out our
lab website.
Recent Publications
Full list on lab website and Google Scholar profile. Talks/presentations on lab website.
- Sarrett ME, Toscano JC (2024). Decoding speech sounds from neurophysiological data: Practical considerations and theoretical implications. Psychophysiology, 61, e14475. [pdf]
- Crinnion AM, Toscano JC, Toscano CM (2022). Effects of experience on recognition of speech produced with a face mask. To appear in Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 7, 46. [pdf]
- Biro T, Viswanathan N, Toscano JC (2022). The influence of task engagement on phonetic convergence. Speech Communication, 138, 50-66. [pdf]
- Getz LM, Toscano JC (2021). Rethinking the McGurk effect as a perceptual illusion. Attention, Perception & Psychophysics, 83, 2583-2598. [pdf]
- Getz LM, Toscano JC (2021). The time-course of speech perception revealed by temporally-sensitive neural measures. WIREs Cognitive Science, 12, e1541. [pdf]
- Toscano JC, Toscano CM (2021). Effects of face masks on speech recognition in multi-talker babble noise. PLOS ONE, 16, e0246842. [pdf]
- Crinnion AM, Malmskog B, Toscano JC (2020). A graph theoretic approach to identifying acoustic cues for speech sound categorization. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 27, 1104-1125. [pdf]
- Falandays JB, Brown-Schmidt S, Toscano JC (2020). Long-lasting gradient activation of referents during spoken language processing. Journal of Memory and Language, 112, 104088. [pdf]
- Getz LM, Toscano JC (2019). Electrophysiological evidence for top-down lexical influences on early speech perception. Psychological Science, 30, 830-841. [pdf]
- Toscano JC, Lansing C (2019). Age-Related changes in temporal and spectral cue weights in speech. Language and Speech, 62, 61-79. [pdf]
- Gao YA, Toscano JC, Shih C, Tanner D (2019). Reassessing the electrophysiological evidence for categorical perception of Mandarin lexical tone: ERP evidence from native and naïve non-native Mandarin listeners. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 81, 543-557. [pdf]
- Pereira O, Gao YA, Toscano JC (2018). Perceptual encoding of natural speech sounds revealed by the N1 event-related potential response. Auditory Perception & Cognition, 1, 112-130. [pdf]
- Tabachnick AR, Toscano JC (2018). Perceptual encoding in auditory brainstem responses: Effects of stimulus frequency. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 61, 2364-2375. [pdf]
- Toscano JC, Anderson ND, Fabiani M, Gratton G, Garnsey SM (2018). The time-course of cortical responses to speech revealed by fast optical imaging. Brain and Language, 184, 32-42. [pdf]
- Buxó-Lugo A, Toscano JC, Watson DG (2018). Effects of participant engagement on prosodic prominence. Discourse Processes, 55, 305-323. [pdf]
Resources
Teaching
I've had the privilege of working with a number of outstanding
students and postdocs in my lab. The following students completed their M.S. theses in our lab:
- Grace Gervino (M.S., 2023), "Delayed corollary discharge as a mechanism for stuttering" [pdf]
- Jenah Black (M.S., 2021), "Discourse effects on maintenance of sub-phonemic uncertainty in language processing" [pdf] Ward Award recipient
- Siyu Lin (M.S., 2021), "Effects of bilingualism on learning novel vowel categories" [pdf]
- Emily L. Martinez (M.S., 2020), "Subphonemic sensitivity of the covert speech efference copy: Implications for understanding auditory hallucinations in schizophrenia" [pdf]
- Andrea Ruggiero (M.S., 2020), "Effects of visual speaking rate information on speech perception" [pdf]
- Yang Agnes Gao (M.S., 2019), "Contextual effects on low-level speech perception" [pdf]
- Abigail Benecke (M.S., 2018), "Redundancy and variability in speech: Listeners' use of token-Level phonetic cues"
[pdf]
- Sofía Cordero (M.S., 2018, Software Engineering), "Applying neural nets to EEG data for hearing loss detection" (co-supervised with Dr. Edward Kim)
[pdf]
- Emma Folk (M.S., 2017), "Parallel vs. serial processing in language comprehension"
[pdf]
- J. Benjamin Falandays (M.S., 2017), "How long can listeners maintain gradient acoustic information?"
[pdf]
- David Saltzman (M.S., 2016), "The role of the speech envelope in speaking rate compensation"
[pdf]
- Tifani Biro (M.S., 2016), "Enhancing tools for measuring phonetic convergence"
[pdf]
Master's students who completed substantial research projects or published work from our lab other than their thesis:
- Courtney Thomas, "Cortical measures of speech sound encoding and effects of hearing loss"
- Elke Nordeen and Sarah Vrabic, "Modeling the development of audiovisual cue integration in speech perception" [pdf]
- Alexandra Tabachnick, "Perceptual encoding in auditory brainstem responses: Effects of stimulus frequency" [pdf]
- Olivia Pereira, "Perceptual encoding of natural speech sounds revealed by the N1 event-related potential response" [pdf]
- Taylor Curley, "Statistical learning of English vowel categories"
Prospective Students
Interested in doing postdoctoral work in the lab or applying to our department's M.S. program? Send me an email to find out more!
Current Villanova undergraduate? Our lab is always looking for good Psychology and Cognitive & Behavioral Neuroscience majors (and other majors!) who want to learn more about perception and language. Click here to find out more about undergraduate research positions in the lab.
Courses
I teach undergraduate and graduate courses in the Psychology, CBN, and Cognitive Science programs at Villanova. I also teach a Mendel Science
Experience (MSE) course in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences called
Sounds of Human Language. The course provides non-science majors with a
background in the techniques and approaches used in the natural sciences. We
study this through the lens of spoken language, exploring the acoustic
properties of speech sounds and the mechanisms underlying speech
perception.