Can technology fully reproduce the human voice? Join us for a guest lecture “Speech Technology as an interdisciplinary challenge: From signals to meaning” by Professor Matt Coler from the University of Groningen. The meeting will take place at SWPS University in Warsaw.
When voice meets technology
In his talk, Professor Coler examines how voice transforms when it moves from lived cultural practice to technological reproduction: a transformation with profound implications for how we understand language, embodiment, and sensory experience.
Drawing on fieldwork with linguistically under-resourced communities and research in auditory perception, he traces speech synthesis through historical eras. Each era redefined what "voice" means: from physical resonance in mechanical apparatus, to acoustic signal in electronic systems, to learned representation in neural networks. This progression reveals a deeper theoretical problem. Voice becomes progressively decontextualized from its embodied origins—what Professor Coler terms the shift from “stimulation” to "stimulus".
When we hear a voice in conversation, we process not just acoustic frequencies but prosodic cues, speaker identity, emotional valence, and social context simultaneously. Psychoacoustic research shows that human auditory perception integrates these dimensions automatically. Yet computational approaches typically isolate acoustic features, stripping away the multisensory, socially embedded nature of voice. What is lost in this reduction? How do communities experience their voices when mediated through algorithmic reproduction?
Professor Coler demonstrates how transfer learning enables speech technology with minimal data—but also interrogates what these technical solutions mean for voice as human phenomenon. The talk argues that advancing speech technology requires interdisciplinary collaboration: computational innovation must engage with cognitive science, sensory studies, and sociolinguistics. Without this integration, we risk creating systems that function acoustically but fail to serve the communities they claim to support.
Event details
The lecture will be conducted in a hybrid format, allowing participants to attend in person at SWPS University in Warsaw or to join online. Those attending online will receive a link to the meeting via email to the address provided in the registration form.
Language: English
Organizers
Contact
Agnieszka Pantuchowicz, Ph.D. / Associate Professor: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Venue
SWPS University, Chodakowska 19/31, room S304