April 12 @ 7pm in KCB (565 Comm Ave) Room 101.
Recent scientific studies have shown that humans are able to reliably identify features such as gender, race, age, and even sexual orientation from just a short sample of speech. (Test subjects also consistently infer attributes such as height, intelligence, attractiveness, and reliability from speech samples, but the accuracy of these inferences has not been investigated.) Such judgments have further been shown to influence individuals’ decisions in matters of social import such as housing applications and legal trials.
In this talk Vaux will survey the range of such effects, consider how and why the human brain is able to draw such inferences so accurately and quickly, and ask what (if anything) can be done to combat their harmful effects, given that linguistic profiling happens automatically and subconsciously.
Sponsored by the BU undergraduate Linguistics Association (BULA) with support from the CAS Academic Enhancement Fund. Followed by a reception. See the Event Flyer.