Cognitive Science at UM

Another publication from the CogSci team.

Adventures in /Ɂ/ The glottal stop is a speech sound with varying functions. It can occur as a phoneme in its own right, as a marker of prosodic boundaries, as a replacement of oral stops, and as the replacement for lexical pitch accents. These unusual properties often provide possibilities for deriving predictions t...

New online study available.

One of our Master students is running online. See the link below. It takes 45 minutes, and you can get 10 euro for participation, to be collected at the Cognitive Science Lab on Campus (Room 202, MaKS Building).

This is what you'll be asked:

In this study, your main task is to evaluate to which extent you believe a trivia statement is true. For instance, consider the statement "Okapis can reach their eyes with their tongues." You are asked to then move a slider to indicate how sure you are that this is correct (or not). Just to release the suspense, in this case, it actually would be correct.

Next to the 100 trivia statments, there will be two additional tasks. First, we measure how well you can hear speech in noise. Then there will be two short questionnaires, each about 20 questions. The whole study is expected to last 45 minutes.

And here's the link:

Experiment

We need your help and you can help a charity with your participation:

Id-Dipartiment tax-Xjenza Konjittiva fl-Università ta’ Malta qed iwettaq studju online dwar kif nipperċepixxu d-differenzi fl-espressjoni, anke meta żewġ frażijiet ikunu miktubin bl-istess mod eż. "kiel is-serp" (he ate the snake) u "kiel is-serp" (the snake ate).
L-istudju jieħu madwar 10 minuti biex jitlesta.
❗ Importanti: L-istudju jista’ jsir biss fuq kompjuter jew laptop, mhux fuq smartphone jew tablet, għax jeħtieġ l-użu tat-tastiera.
Biex nirringrazzjawkom, għal kull wieħed mill-ewwel 100 parteċipant, se nagħmlu donazzjoni ta’ €5 lil karità tal-għażla tagħkom (Hospice Malta, Richmond Foundation, Żibel, AAA Malta, Animal Shelters, Equal Partners Foundation, ROTA).
Napprezzaw ħafna l-appoġġ tagħkom! 🙌
Tista’ tipparteċipa permezz tal-ħolqa hawn taħt 👇

UoM Cognitive Science

Members of the Department presenting at the ECVP2025

Our students presenting the results of their coursework at the international 'r-atics Workshop that was organized by our department at the Valletta Campus.

And we made it into the news:

Young Maltese generation is pronouncing the 'R' differently - study - TVMnews.mt A study conducted among 60 people of different ages, including young people, found that the media they follow affects their pronunciation of the letter 'R.'

Last week, a study from the Cognitive-Science lab was features in the Times of Malta, including an interactive, citizen-science component.

Why younger Maltese people are now rolling their Rs less A study of recordings of 60 Maltese speakers finds signs of a generation divide

Our Masters' student in Cognitive Science are running a short study on how to name products.

And you can help them!

Take 5-6 minutes and participate in the study, using this link:

productNaming [PsychoPy]

The Department of Cognitive Science is hosting an international workshop on rhotics (/r/-sounds), 'r-atics 8, to be held 22-23 of May 2025. The deadline for submissions has been extended to 21st of January.

Check it out:

'r-atics 8, Valletta, Malta 'r-atics is a workshop intruiged by the variation of rhotics sounds over and within the world's languages. 'r-atics gathers an international network of researchers working on different issues concerning /r/ sounds. It is an international workshop that enhances mutual cooperation in a friendly enviro...

Recently, the founder of the field of socio-linguistcs, William Labov, passed away. There is an amazing tribute video from his last PhD student on his legacy, well worth watching:

S*x, Death, and Moral Outrage: remembering Bill Labov Today, I'm remembering Bill Labov, the founder of sociolinguistics, and the linguist who may have had the largest impact of anybody in the 20th century. If y...

You think cognitive science does not touch on everyday issues?
Our latest seminar speaker would disagree.