CV
Education
- Ph.D. Sensorimotor Experience in Speech Perception. Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, 2013-2017
- R.M.A. in Linguistics, Utrecht University, 2011-2015
- B.S. in Linguistics, University of California, Berkeley, 2007
Positions
- 2017-Present: Postdoctoral Scholar
- Chang Lab
- University of California, San Francisco
- Advisors: Dr. Matthew K. Leonard, Prof. Edward F. Chang.
- 2013-2017: PhD Candidate
- Psychology of Language Department
- Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, the Netherlands.
- Advisors: Antje Meyer, James M. McQueen
Teaching
Publications
Human intracranial recordings reveal distinct cortical activity patterns during invasive and non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation.
Schuerman, W. L., Nourski, K. V., Rhone, A. E., Howard, M. A., Chang, E. F., & Leonard, M. K. (2021). "Human intracranial recordings reveal distinct cortical activity patterns during invasive and non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation." Scientific Reports 22780(11)
Learning nonnative speech sounds changes local encoding in the adult human cortex.
Han, G. Y., Chandrasekaran, B., Nourski, K.V., Rhone, A.E., Schuerman, W. L., Howard, M. A., Chang, E. F., & Leonard, M. K. (2021). "Learning nonnative speech sounds changes local encoding in the adult human cortex." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(36).
Using expletive insertion to pursue and sanction in interaction.
Hoey, E. M., Hömke, P., Löfgren, E., Neumann, T., Schuerman, W. L., & Kendrick, K. H. (2020). "Using expletive insertion to pursue and sanction in interaction." Journal of Sociolinguistics. 25(1).
Non-invasive peripheral nerve stimulation selectively enhances speech category learning in adults.
Llanos, F., McHaney, J. R., Schuerman, W. L., Yi, H. G., Leonard, M. K., & Chandrasekaran, B. (2020). "Non-invasive peripheral nerve stimulation selectively enhances speech category learning in adults." npj Science of Learning, 5(1)
Comparison of Common Artifact Rejection Methods applied to Direct Cortical and Peripheral Stimulation in Human ECoG.
Sellers, K.K., Schuerman, W.L., Dawes, H. E., Chang, E. F., & Leonard, M. K., (2019). "Comparison of Common Artifact Rejection Methods applied to Direct Cortical and Peripheral Stimulation in Human ECoG." In 2019 9th International IEEE/EMBS Conference on Neural Engineering (NER), Mar. 2019, pp. 77–80
Sensorimotor adaptation affects perceptual compensation for coarticulation.
Schuerman, W. L., Nagarajan, S., McQueen, J. M., & Houde, J. (2017) "Sensorimotor Adaptation Affects Perceptual Compensation for Coarticulation." The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 141 (4), 2693-2704
Mapping the Speech Code: Cortical Responses Linking the Perception and Production of Vowels.
Schuerman, W. L., Meyer, A., & McQueen, J. M. (2017). "Mapping the Speech Code: Cortical responses linking the perception and production of vowels." Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 11(161)
What sound symbolism can and cannot do: testing the iconicity of ideophones from five languages.
Dingemanse, M., Schuerman, W., Reinisch, E., Tufvesson, S., & Mitterer, H. (2016). "What sound symbolism can and cannot do: testing the iconicity of ideophones from five languages." Language, 92(2), e67-e83.
Do we perceive others better than ourselves? A perceptual benefit for noise-vocoded speech produced by an average speaker.
Schuerman, W., Meyer, A. S., & McQueen, J. M. (2015). "Do we perceive others better than ourselves? A perceptual benefit for noise-vocoded speech produced by an average speaker." PLoS One, 10(7): e0129731
Talks
Motor resonance in the production of ’smile-words.’
Talk at 4th annual conference of Young Linguists in Dialogue, Wrocław, Poland
The limited power of sound symbolism.
Talk at AMLaP XVIII, Riva del Garda, Italy
Smile with a smile.
Talk at Interspeech 2012, Portland, OR, USA
Development of vowel spaces from age 21 to age 49 in a group of 8 talkers.
Talk at 5th International and Interdisciplinary Research Conference, Indiana University, Bloomington
Do listeners recognize others’ speech better than their own?
Talk at MPI Proudly Presents, Nijmegen, the Netherlands
Listeners recognize others’ speech better than their own.
Poster at AMLaP XX, Edinburgh, Scotland
Speaker intelligibility may influence perception acuity.
Talk at Bias in Auditory Perception, Aarhus, Denmark
Praatalign: Phonetic alignment made easier for psycholinguistic data processing.
Poster at AMLaP XXI, Valleta, Malta
Changes in consonant perception driven by adaptation of vowel production to altered auditory feedback.
Poster at ICPhS 2015, Glasgow, Scotland
Be like me or be like everyone: Effects of phonetic prototypicality on speech recognition.
Talk at MPI Proudly Presents, Nijmegen, the Netherlands
Transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation enhances non-native speech categorization.
Poster at Tenth Annual Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language, Quebec City, Canada
Sparking neural plasticity
Talk at UCSF Postdoc Slam, San Francisco, California
Speaker statistical averageness modulates word recognition in adverse listening conditions.
Talk at ICPhS 2019, Melbourne, Australia
Skills
- Programming Languages: Matlab, R, Python, Praat, LaTeX
- Natural Languages:
- English (Native)
- Dutch (Working proficiency)
- German (Working proficiency)
- Italian (Conversational proficiency)
- Spanish (Basic proficiency)
- Specializations: Intracranial electrophysiology, Research design, Data science, Phonetic analysis
Service and leadership
- Assembly Member. Max Planck Alumni Association. March 2020 – Present.
- Max Planck Alumni Ambassador (US West Coast). Max Planck Alumni Association. Sep. 2019 - Sep. 2021
- Organizer. Development of Intersubjectivity in Interaction. Conference, MPI for Psycholinguistics, October 2015. Curriculum Committee, Linguistics. Utrecht University, 2010 - 2011.
- Ad-Hoc Reviewer. Current Biology, British Journal of Psychology