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Social Sciences and Humanities; Arts and Music; Literature and Languages; Medical Sciences

Simone Falk

Professeure agrégée

Faculté des arts et des sciences - Département de linguistique et de traduction

Pavillon Lionel-Groulx, room C-9036

514 343-6111 #32483

simone.falk@umontreal.ca

Profile

Research expertise

My research focuses on the interface between language and music. I am particularly interested in rhythmic phenomena in music and speech and rhythmic functions in communication, language acquisition and speech and language pathology. My approach is fundamentally interdisciplinary inspired by theory and methods of several disciplines (experimental linguistics, neurosciences (EEG), cognitive sciences, movement sciences).

The major aim of my current research program is to examine the role of rhythmic and temporal predictions in language processing in order to

  1. characterize developmental speech and language deficits and  better understand individual differences
  2. unravel the role of temporal predictions in discourse comprehension, verbal and motor coordination between interlocutors
  3. collaborate with speech therapists to develop new approaches for speech pathology intervention based on musical training, singing and rhythm interaction

For more information…

Affiliations and responsabilities

Teaching and supervision

Student supervision

Theses and dissertation supervision (Papyrus Institutional Repository)

Projects

Research projects

2021 - 2027

The role of rhythm in the development of speech perception and production

Lead researcher : Simone Falk
Funding sources: CRSNG/Conseil de recherches en sciences naturelles et génie du Canada (CRSNG)
Grant programs: PVX20965-(RGP) Programme de subvention à la découverte individuelle ou de groupe
2021 - 2027

The role of rhythm in the development of speech perception and production

Lead researcher : Simone Falk
Funding sources: CRSNG/Conseil de recherches en sciences naturelles et génie du Canada (CRSNG)
Grant programs: PVXXXXXX-(DGECR) Tremplin vers la découverte
2023 - 2025

Group singing to support social wellbeing and communication in adults with communication disorders: A knowledge generation and mobilization partnership

Funding sources: CRSH/Conseil de recherches en sciences humaines du Canada
Grant programs: PV128152-Subvention de partenariat
2020 - 2025

Le rythme et la coordination entre locuteurs dans la communication orale chez les enfants

Lead researcher : Simone Falk
Funding sources: FRQSC/Fonds de recherche du Québec - Société et culture (FQRSC)
Grant programs: PV113813-(NP) Soutien à la recherche pour la relève professorale
2020 - 2025

Chaire de recherche du Canada en Interdisciplinary studies on rhythm and language acquisition

Funding sources: SPIIE/Secrétariat des programmes interorganismes à l’intention des établissements
Grant programs: PVX50399-Chaires de recherche du Canada
2020 - 2025

CRBLM //The stuttering choir - technical development and programming of an online interface for timed recording of speech and singing

Funding sources: FRQNT/Fonds de recherche du Québec - Nature et technologies (FQRNT)
Grant programs: PVXXXXXX-(RS) Programme de regroupements stratégiques
2020 - 2024

The stuttering choir

Lead researcher : Simone Falk
Co-researchers : Frank A Russo
Funding sources: CRSH/Conseil de recherches en sciences humaines du Canada
Grant programs: PVXXXXXX-Subvention d'engagement partenarial
2021 - 2023

Predictive timing in speech production and perception

Lead researcher : Simone Dalla Bella
Co-researchers : Simone Falk , Philip Hoole
Funding sources: German Research Foundation / Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
Grant programs:
2022

Watch me talk : Rhythmic coordination of children who stutter and their different interlocutors

Funding sources: SPIIE/Secrétariat des programmes interorganismes à l’intention des établissements
Grant programs: PVXXXXXX-Fonds d'excellence en recherche Apogée Canada/Bourse
2019 - 2022

Rhythm is it – finding the missing link between language and the body

Lead researcher : Simone Falk
Funding sources: CRSH/Conseil de recherches en sciences humaines du Canada
Grant programs: PVX20020-Subvention institutionnelle du CRSH - Subventions d'exploration

Outreach

Publications and presentations

Publications

Journal articles (peer-reviewed)

  • Falk, S. & Audibert, N. (accepted). Acoustic signatures of communicative dimensions in codified mother-infant interactions. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
  • Falk, S., Fasolo, M., Genovese, G., Romero-Lauro, L., & Franco, F. (2021). Sing for me, Mama! Infants' discrimination of novel vowels in song. Infancy26(2), 248–270. https://doi.org/10.1111/infa.12387
  • Aichert, I., Lehner, K., Falk, S., Späth, M., Franke, M., & Ziegler, W. (2021). In time with the beat: Entrainment in patients with phonological impairment, apraxia of speech, and Parkinson’s disease. Brain Sciences, 11: 1524. https://doi.org/10.3390/ brainsci11111524
  • Petrone, C., d’Alessandro, D., & Falk, S. (2021). Sources of individual variation in the imitation of phonological intonational structure. Journal of Phonetics (89), 10111. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wocn.2021.101100
  • Rathcke, T., Lin, C.-Y., Falk, S., & Dalla Bella, S. (2021). Tapping into linguistic rhythm. Laboratory Phonology 12(1): 11, 1–32. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/labphon.248
  • Rathcke, T., Falk, S., & Dalla Bella, S. (2021). Music to your ears: Sentence sonority and listener background modulate the “speech-to-song illusion”. Music Perception 38(5), 499-508. https://doi.org/10.1525/MP.2021.38.5.499
  • Fiveash, A; Falk, S., & Tillmann, B. (2021). What you hear first, is what you get: Initial metrical cue presentation modulates syllable detection in sentence processing. Attention, Perception & Psychophysics, 83, 1861-1877. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-021-02251-y
  • Falk, S. & Tsang, C.D. (2020). 6- to 9-Month old infants discriminate vowel durations in variable speech contexts. Infant Behavior and Development, 61, 101475. doi: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2020.101475
  • Hidalgo, C., Zécri, A., Pesnot-Lerousseau, J., Truy, E., Roman, S., Falk, S., Dalla Bella, S., Schön, D. (2020). Rhythmic abilities of children with hearing loss. Ear & Hearing (Epub ahead of print). doi: 10.1097/AUD.0000000000000926
  • Ravignani, A., Dalla Bella, S., Falk, S., Kello, C., Noriega, F., & Kotz, S. (2019). Rhythm in speech and animal vocalizations: a cross-species perspective. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1453(1), 79-98. doi: 10.1111/nyas.14166
  • Aichert, I., Lehner, K., Falk, S., Späth, M., & Ziegler, W. (2019). Do patients with neurogenic speech sound impairments benefit from auditory priming with a regular metrical pattern? Journal of Speech, Language, & Hearing Research, 62(8S):3104-3118. doi: 10.1044/2019_JSLHR-S-CSMC7-18-0172
  • Falk, S., Lanzilotti, C., & Schön, D. (2017). Tuning neural phase entrainment to speech. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 29(8), 1378-1389. doi:10.1162/jocn_a_01136
  • Falk, S., & Kello, C.T. (2017). Hierarchical organization in the temporal structure of infant-directed speech and song. Cognition, 163, 80-86. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2017.02.017
  • Falk, S., Volpi-Moncorger, C., & Dalla Bella, S. (2017). Auditory-motor rhythms and speech processing in French and German listeners. Frontiers in Psychology, 8:395. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00395
  • Tsang, C.D., Falk, S., & Hessel, A. (2017). Infants prefer infant-directed song over speech, Child Development, 88(4), 1207-1215. doi: 10.1111/cdev.12647
  • Hidalgo, C., Falk, S., & Schön, D. (2017). Speak on time! Effects of a musical rhythmic training on children with hearing loss. Hearing Research, 351, 11-18. doi: 10.1016/j.heares.2017.05.006
  • Phillmore, L., Fisk, J., Falk, S., & Tsang, C. (2017). Songbirds as objective listeners: Zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) can discriminate infant-directed song and speech in two languages. International Journal of Comparative Psychology, 30.
  • Falk, S., Maslow, E., Thum, G., & Hoole, P. (2016). Temporal variability in sung productions of adolescents who stutter. Journal of Communication Disorders, 62, 101-114. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcomdis.2016.05.012
  • Falk, S., & Dalla Bella, S. (2016). It is better when expected: Aligning speech and motor rhythms enhances verbal processing. Language, Cognition & Neuroscience, 31, 699-708. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23273798.2016.1144892
  • Falk, S., Müller, T., & Dalla Bella, S. (2015). Non-verbal sensorimotor timing deficits in children and adolescents who stutter. Frontiers in Psychology 6: 847. http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00847
  • Falk, S., Rathcke, T., & Dalla Bella, S. (2014). When speech sounds like music. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 40(4), 1491-1506.
    (chosen for APA: PeePs (Particularly exciting experiments in Psychology), 11th of September 2014). http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0036858
  • Falk, S. (2014). On the notion of salience in spoken discourse - prominence cues shaping discourse structure and comprehension. Travaux interdisciplinaires sur la parole et le langage (TIPA), 30. http://dx.doi.org/10.4000/tipa.1303
  • Falk, S. (2013). Communicative functions of rhythm - the case of radio broadcasting. Cahiers de Praxématique, 61.
  • Falk, S. (2011). Melodic vs. intonational coding of communicative functions - A comparison of tonal contours in infant-directed song and speech. Psychomusicology, 21(1&2), 53-68.
  • Falk, S. (2011). Temporal variability and stability in infant-directed sung speech: Evidence for language-specific patterns. Language and Speech, 54(2), 167-180.
  • Öhl, P., & Falk, S. (2011). Syntactic competence and performance-based variation: the case of German particle verbs. In M. Putnam (Ed), Leuvense Bijdragen, Special issue: Syntax and Semantics of Parti­cle Verbs, 97, 170-202.
  • Falk, S. (2008). „Mama, sing mir mal das Buch!" Einige Überlegungen zu guten prosodischen Gestalten im frühen Spracherwerb. Journal of Literary Theory, 2(2), 229-250.

Monograph

  • Falk, S. (2009). Musik und Sprachprosodie. Kindgerichtetes Singen im frühen Spracherwerb. [Musique et prosodie de la parole. Le chant dirigé vers l'enfant et son rôle pour l'acquisition du langage]. Berlin, New York: de Gruyter.

Joint Volumes

  • Falk, S. & Tsang, C.D. (2020). The role and functions of infant-directed singing in early development. In F. Russo, B. Ilari, & A. Cohen (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Interdisciplinary Studies in Singing, Volume I: Development (pp.179-188). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315163734.
  • Falk, S., Schreier, R., & Russo, F. (2020). Singing and stuttering. In R. Heydon, D. Fancourt, & A. Cohen (Eds), The Routledge Companion to Interdisciplinary Studies in Singing, Volume III: Wellbeing (pp. 50-60). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315162546
  • Falk, S. (2020). Singen an der Schnittstelle zwischen Musik und Sprache [Singing at the interface between language and music]. In Elmenthaler, M. & Niebuhr, O. (Eds), An den Rändern der Sprache [Boundary phenomena in language] (p.299-322). Frankfurt/New York: Peter Lang.
  • Rupp, E. & Falk, S. (2017). Perspektivierung grammatischer Entitäten - Ergebnisse zum Action-Sentence Compatibility Effekt [Perspectivization of grammatical entities – Insights from the Action-Sentence Compatibility effect]. In Zeman, S., Werner, M., Meisnitzer, B. (Eds.). Im Spiegel der Grammatik. Beiträge zur Theorie sprachlicher Kategorisierung. (pp.181-198). Tübingen: Stauffenburg Verlag.
  • Falk, S., & Rathcke, T. (2011). The Speech-to-Song Illusion revisited. In K. Dębowska-Kozłowska, & K. Dziubalska-Kołaczyk (Eds), On words and sounds. A Selection of Papers from the 40th Poznan Linguistic Meeting 2009 (pp. 1-24). Cambridge: CSP.
  • Falk, S. (2011). Zum Umgang mit der Perspektivenvielfalt geisteswissenschaftlicher Forschung. Ein Workshopbericht. In R. Dietrich, D. Smilovski, & A. Nünning (Eds.), Lost or Found in Translation? Interkulturelle/Internationale Perspektiven der Geisteswissenschaften. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier.
  • Falk, S. (2009). Phonische Basisqualifikation. In K. C. Ehlich, U. Bredel, & H. H. Reich (Eds.), Referenzrahmen zur altersspezifischen Sprachaneignung – Forschungsgrundlagen. (pp.11-30). Bonn, Berlin: Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung.
  • Falk, S., Bredel, U., & Reich, H. H. (2008). Phonische Basisqualifikation. In  K. C. Ehlich, U. Bredel, & H. H. Reich (Eds.), Referenzrahmen zur altersspezifischen Sprachaneignung (pp.35-40). Bonn, Berlin: Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung.

Disciplines

  • Neurosciences
  • Linguistics
  • Music

Areas of expertise

  • Cognition incarnée
  • Le rythme de la parole et son traitement neurocognitif
  • Linguistique expérimentale
  • Musique et Langage
  • Neurolinguistique
  • Pathologie du langage et de la parole