CV
Education
2012, Ph.D. Stanford University
Dissertation: Sign and signal: deriving linguistic generalizations from information utility
Dissertation committee: Dan Jurafsky (chair), Arto Anttila, Paul Kiparsky, Chris Manning, Meghan Sumner2006, Master’s Tel Aviv University Summa Cum Laude
Thesis: Pre-parsing efficiently: treating garden path phenomena as parallel to a greedy parser
Thesis supervisor: Fred Landman2005, Undergraduate Studies Tel Aviv University
The Adi Lautman Interdisciplinary Program for Outstanding Students Main foci: linguistics, computer science and psychology.
Employment
2021 Associate Professor, Brown University
2012 Assistant Professor, Brown University
Funding
NSF Grant: BCS-1829290 Building a corpus of phonemic lexicons to study information theoretic universals ($391,055, over 30 months)
Leverhulme Trust Grant (co-PI): Is the cultural shift to written communication changing language? PI: Shiri Lev-Ari; Co-PI.: Kathy Rastle (£183,437)
Publications
*equal contribution
#student author
Linguistic resource manuals
Uriel Cohen Priva, Emily Strand, #Shiying Yang, #William Mizgerd, #Abigail Creighton, #Justin Bai, #Rebecca Mathew, #Allison Shao, #Jordan Schuster, and #Daniela Wiepert. 2021. The Cross-linguistic Phonological Frequencies (XPF) Corpus manual. Accessible online, https://cohenpr-xpf.github.io/XPF/manual/xpf_manual.pdf. (bib)
@Manual{XPF2021manual,
author={Cohen Priva, Uriel and Strand, Emily and Yang, Shiying and Mizgerd, William and Creighton, Abigail and Bai, Justin and Mathew, Rebecca and Shao, Allison and Schuster, Jordan and Wiepert, Daniela},
title = {The Cross-linguistic Phonological Frequencies (XPF) Corpus manual},
year = {2021},
note = {Accessible online, \url{https://cohenpr-xpf.github.io/XPF/manual/xpf_manual.pdf}}
}
Under review
Uriel Cohen Priva, Under review. Scale2fit: Disentangling the determinants of vowels’ spectral properties using mixed effects models. (preprint, bib)
@Misc{CohenPrivaScale2fit,
author = {Cohen Priva, Uriel},
title = {Scale2fit: Disentangling the determinants of vowels' spectral properties using mixed effects models},
note = {(\href{https://osf.io/tsf65/}{preprint})},
year = {Under review},
doi = {10.31234/osf.io/yectr},
abstract = {This paper introduces scale2fit, a framework for evaluating multiple factors affecting vowels’ acoustic properties jointly, which proves useful for vowel normalization and avoiding over-normalization. The acoustic properties of vowels stem from a combination of multiple factors including the intended vowel quality, vocal tract length, coarticulation, and speech rate. However, most current vowel normalization approaches do not distinguish among the different determinants. Scale2fit uses mixed effects models to jointly evaluate multiple factors, avoiding their conflation in vowel normalization. Study 1 shows that the new method excels in a series of comparisons with other normalization methods. Study 2 shows that the proposed framework excels at preserving vowel space reduction that follows from short duration, and is therefore more appropriate for studying vowel space reduction. Finally, Study 3 shows that it is possible to establish variety norms and add speakers incrementally.}
}
Refereed journal articles
Uriel Cohen Priva and Emily Strand. 2023. Schwa’s duration and acoustic position in American English. Journal of Phonetics, 96: 101198. (Open Access, bib)
@Article{CohenPrivaStrand2023VLenition,
author = {Cohen Priva, Uriel and Strand, Emily},
title = {Schwa's duration and acoustic position in {American English}},
journal = {Journal of Phonetics},
volume = {96},
doi = {10.1016/j.wocn.2022.101198},
year = {2023},
url = {http://urielcpublic.s3.amazonaws.com/papers/CohenPriva_Strand_Schwa-Accepted.pdf},
pages = {101198},
note = {(\href{https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0095447022000730/pdfft?md5=da2c9c226cfb1d4764a37fb4cfe4790b&pid=1-s2.0-S0095447022000730-main.pdf}{Open Access})},
abstract = {Is American English schwa’s position determined solely by the context in which it appears? Do vowels neutralize to schwa when their duration is shorter? We address these two inter-related questions using the Buckeye corpus to study vowel behavior across multiple contexts of spontaneous speech. We find that all except tense high vowels shift to lower F1 values when their duration is relatively short, including lax high vowels and lexical schwas, rather than toward a mid-vowel position that schwa occupies when its duration is long. However, we also replicate the finding that schwa is more dependent on both context and duration than other vowels. The results are not consistent with the idea that schwa’s position is determined exclusively by the context in which it appears. However, schwa’s shift to higher F1 values when its duration is longer is not necessarily different from other vowels’ shift to higher F1 values when their duration is longer, making it unnecessary to argue that schwa’s mid-vowel properties are due to having a target in F1 terms.}
}
*Uriel Cohen Priva and *Chelsea Sanker. 2020. Natural leaders: Some interlocutors elicit greater convergence across conversations and across characteristics. Cognitive Science, 44 (10): e12897. (preprint, download published version, bib)
@article{CohenPrivaSanker2020Convergence,
author = {Cohen Priva, Uriel and Sanker, Chelsea},
title = {Natural Leaders: Some Interlocutors Elicit Greater Convergence Across Conversations and Across Characteristics},
journal = {Cognitive Science},
volume = {44},
number = {10},
pages = {e12897},
keywords = {Convergence, Consistency, Corpus study, Individual differences, Interlocutor effects, Cross-characteristic, Social mediation},
doi = {10.1111/cogs.12897},
note = {(\href{https://psyarxiv.com/8zsh5/}{preprint}, \href{https://urielcpublic.s3.amazonaws.com/papers/CohenPriva_Sanker-Cognitive_Science-Natural_Leaders.pdf}{download published version})},
year = {2020},
url = {https://urielcpublic.s3.amazonaws.com/papers/CohenPriva_Sanker-Cognitive_Science-Natural_Leaders.pdf},
abstract = {Are there individual tendencies in convergence, such that some speakers consistently converge more than others? Similarly, are there natural “leaders,” speakers with whom others converge more? Are such tendencies consistent across different linguistic characteristics? We use the Switchboard Corpus to perform a large-scale convergence study of speakers in multiple conversations with different interlocutors, across six linguistic characteristics. Because each speaker participated in several conversations, it is possible to look for individual differences in speakers' likelihood of converging and interlocutors' likelihood of eliciting convergence. We only find evidence for individual differences by interlocutor, not by speaker: There are natural leaders of convergence, who elicit more convergence than others across characteristics and across conversations. The lack of similar evidence for speakers who converge more than others suggests that social factors have a stronger effect in mediating convergence than putative individual tendencies in producing convergence, or that such tendencies are characteristic-specific.},
}
Uriel Cohen Priva and Emily Gleason. 2020. The causal structure of lenition: A case for the causal precedence of durational shortening. Language, 96 (2): 413–448. (open access, bib)
@Article{CohenPrivaGleason2020Lenition,
author = {Cohen Priva, Uriel and Gleason, Emily},
title = {The causal structure of lenition: A case for the causal precedence of durational shortening},
shorttitle = {The causal structure of lenition},
note = {(\href{https://urielcpublic.s3.amazonaws.com/CohenPriva_Gleason-2020-Language.html}{open access})},
url = {https://www.linguisticsociety.org/sites/default/files/05_93.3CohenPriva.pdf},
year = {2020},
doi = {10.1353/lan.2020.0025},
pages = {413--448},
number = {2},
volume = {96},
journal = {Language},
}
*Uriel Cohen Priva and *Chelsea Sanker. 2019. Limitations of difference-in-difference for measuring convergence. Laboratory Phonology: Journal of the Association for Laboratory Phonology, 10 (1): 15. (bib)
@article{CohenPrivaSanker2019did,
author = {Cohen Priva, Uriel and Sanker, Chelsea},
title = {Limitations of difference-in-difference for measuring convergence},
doi = {10.5334/labphon.200},
volume={10},
number={1},
journal={Laboratory Phonology: Journal of the Association for Laboratory Phonology},
publisher={Ubiquity Press, Ltd.},
year={2019},
month={Sep},
pages={15},
abstract = {Linguistic convergence is the phenomenon in which interlocutors’ speech characteristics become more similar to each other’s. One of the methods frequently used to measure convergence is the difference-in-difference (DID) approach, comparing change in absolute distance between a subject and an interlocutor or model talker. We show that this approach is not a reliable measure of convergence when the starting values of the subject and the interlocutor or model talker are close, which can result in the measurement of apparent divergence, while extreme starting points can result in overestimation of convergence. These biases are of particular concern in studies that look for individual differences in convergence. We propose an alternative approach, linear combination, which does not have the same biases, and demonstrate the advantages of this method using data from convergence studies of four linguistic characteristics and simulated data.}
}
#Jie Ren, Uriel Cohen Priva, and James L. Morgan. 2019. Underspecification in infants’ and adults’ lexical representations. Cognition, 193: 103991. (preprint, bib)
@article{RenEtAl2019Underspecification,
title = {Underspecification in Infants' and Adults' Lexical Representations},
journal = {Cognition},
doi = {10.1016/j.cognition.2019.06.003},
year = {2019},
pages = {103991},
note = {(\href{https://urielcpublic.s3.amazonaws.com/papers/RenCohenPrivaMorgan-underspecification.pdf}{preprint})},
volume={193},
publisher={Elsevier BV},
author={Ren, Jie and Cohen Priva, Uriel and Morgan, James L.},
month={Dec},
keywords={Lexical representation, Developmental continuity, Mispronunciation processing, Phonological details, Underspecification},
abstract={Recent research has shown that toddlers’ lexical representations are phonologically detailed, quantitatively much like those of adults. Studies in this article explore whether toddlers’ and adults’ lexical representations are qualitatively similar. Psycholinguistic claims (Lahiri & Marslen-Wilson, 1991; Lahiri & Reetz, 2002, 2010) based on underspecification (Kiparsky, 1982 et seq.) predict asymmetrical judgments in lexical processing tasks; these have been supported in some psycholinguistic research showing that participants are more sensitive to noncoronal-to-coronal (pop → top) than to coronal-to-noncoronal (top → pop) changes or mispronunciations. Three experiments using on-line visual world procedures showed that 19-month-olds and adults displayed sensitivities to both noncoronal-to-coronal and coronal-to-noncoronal mispronunciations of familiar words. No hints of any asymmetries were observed for either age group. There thus appears to be considerable developmental continuity in the nature of early and mature lexical representations. Discrepancies between the current findings and those of previous studies appear to be due to methodological differences that cast doubt on the validity of claims of psycholinguistic support for lexical underspecification.}
}
Elinor Amit, SoYon Rim, Georg Halbeisen, Uriel Cohen Priva, Elena Stephan, and Yaacov Trope. 2019. Distance-dependent memory for pictures and words. Journal of Memory and Language, 105: 119–130. (preprint, bib)
@article{Amit2019Memory,
title={Distance-dependent memory for pictures and words},
volume={105},
DOI={10.1016/j.jml.2019.01.001},
journal={Journal of Memory and Language},
publisher={Elsevier BV},
author={Amit, Elinor and Rim, SoYon and Halbeisen, Georg and Cohen Priva, Uriel and Stephan, Elena and Trope, Yaacov},
year={2019},
month={Apr},
pages={119--130},
note = {(\href{http://urielcpublic.s3.amazonaws.com/papers/Amit-etal-JML-2019-preprint.pdf}{preprint})}
}
#Babak Hemmatian, #Sabina J Sloman, Uriel Cohen Priva, and Steven A Sloman. 2019. Think of the consequences: A decade of discourse about same-sex marriage. Behavior Research Methods. (bib)
@article{Babak2019Sloman,
journal = {Behavior Research Methods},
year = {2019},
title={Think of the Consequences: A Decade of Discourse About Same-Sex Marriage},
volumte={51},
issue={4},
page={1565--1585},
publisher={Springer Nature},
doi={10.3758/s13428-019-01215-3},
author={Hemmatian, Babak and Sloman, Sabina J and Cohen Priva, Uriel and Sloman, Steven A},
abstract={
Approaching issues through the lens of nonnegotiable values
increases the perceived intractability of debate (Baron & Spranca in
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 70, 1–16,
1997), while focusing on the concrete consequences of policies instead
results in the moderation of extreme opinions (Fernbach, Rogers, Fox, &
Sloman in Psychological Science, 24, 939–946, 2013) and a greater
likelihood of conflict resolution (Baron & Leshner in Journal of
Experimental Psychology: Applied, 6, 183–194, 2000). Using comments on
the popular social media platform Reddit from January 2006 until
September 2017, we showed how changes in the framing of same-sex
marriage in public discourse relate to changes in public opinion. We
used a topic model to show that the contributions of certain
protected-values-based topics to the debate (religious arguments and
freedom of opinion) increased prior to the emergence of a public
consensus in support of same-sex marriage (Gallup, 2017), and declined
afterward. In contrast, the discussion of certain consequentialist
topics (the impact of politicians’ stance and same-sex marriage as a
matter of policy) showed the opposite pattern. Our results reinforce the
meaningfulness of protected values and consequentialism as relevant
dimensions for describing public discourse and highlight the usefulness
of unsupervised machine-learning methods in tackling questions about
social attitude change.
}
}
Uriel Cohen Priva and T. Florian Jaeger. 2018. The interdependence of frequency, predictability, and informativity in the segmental domain. Linguistics Vanguard, 4 (S2). (preprint, bib)
@Article{CohenPrivaJaeger2018,
author = {Cohen Priva, Uriel and Jaeger, T. Florian},
title = {The interdependence of frequency, predictability, and informativity in the segmental domain},
journal = {Linguistics Vanguard},
year = {2018},
doi = {10.1515/lingvan-2017-0028},
volume = {4},
note = {(\href{http://urielcpublic.s3.amazonaws.com/CohenPriva-Jaeger-2018.pdf}{preprint})},
number = {S2}
}
Uriel Cohen Priva, #Lee Edelist, and Emily Gleason. 2017. Converging to the baseline: Corpus evidence for convergence in speech rate to interlocutor’s baseline. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 141 (5): 2989–2996. (preprint, bib)
@Article{CohenPrivaEdelistGleason2017Convergence,
title = {Converging to the baseline: {Corpus} evidence for convergence in speech rate to interlocutor's baseline},
volume = {141},
shorttitle = {Converging to the baseline},
doi = {10.1121/1.4982199},
abstract = {Speakers have been shown to alter their speech to resemble that of their conversational partner. Do speakers converge with their interlocutor's baseline, or does convergence stem from conversational properties that similarly affect both parties? Using the Switchboard corpus, this paper shows evidence for speakers' convergence in speech rate to the other party's baseline, not only to conversation-specific properties. Study 1 shows that the method for calculating speech rate used in this paper is powerful enough to replicate established findings. Study 2 demonstrates that speakers are mostly affected by their own behavior in other contexts, but that they also converge to their interlocutor's baseline, established using the interlocutor's behavior in other contexts. Study 2 also shows that speakers change their speech rate in response to the interlocutor's characteristics: speakers speak more slowly with older speakers regardless of the interlocutor's speech rate, and male speakers speak faster with other male speakers.},
number = {5},
journal = {The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America},
month = may,
author = {Cohen Priva, Uriel and Edelist, Lee and Gleason, Emily},
year = {2017},
pages = {2989--2996},
note = {(\href{http://urielcpublic.s3.amazonaws.com/CohenPriva_Edelist_Gleason-Converging_to_the_baseline-accepted.pdf}{preprint})}
}
Uriel Cohen Priva. 2017. Not so fast: Fast speech correlates with lower lexical and structural information. Cognition, 160: 27–34. (preprint, bib)
@Article{CohenPriva2017SpeechRate,
author = {Cohen Priva, Uriel},
title = {Not so fast: Fast speech correlates with lower lexical and structural information},
journal = {Cognition},
volume = {160},
pages = {27--34},
year = {2017},
doi = {10.1016/j.cognition.2016.12.002},
note = {(\href{http://urielcpublic.s3.amazonaws.com/Not_so_fast-accepted.pdf}{preprint})},
}
Uriel Cohen Priva. 2017. Informativity and the actuation of lenition. Language, 93 (3): 569–597. (open access, bib)
@Article{CohenPriva2017LenitionActuation,
author = {Cohen Priva, Uriel},
title = {Informativity and the actuation of lenition},
url = {https://muse.jhu.edu/article/669547},
note = {(\href{https://urielcpublic.s3.amazonaws.com/CohenPriva-2017-Language.html}{open access})},
journal = {Language},
volume = {93},
number = {3},
issue = {},
pages = {569--597},
year = {2017},
doi = {10.1353/lan.2017.0037}
}
Uriel Cohen Priva. 2015. Informativity affects consonant duration and deletion rates. Laboratory Phonology, 6 (2): 243–278. (open access, bib)
@article{CohenPriva2015LabPhon,
title = {Informativity affects consonant duration and deletion rates},
volume = {6},
doi = {10.1515/lp-2015-0008},
abstract = {The duration and occasional deletion rate of consonants differ from one language to another. What causes a language to preserve and lengthen some consonants but shorten and delete others? I show that the typology of consonant duration and occasional deletion in American English is affected by consonants’ informativity – their average local predictability. Informativity can explain why usually-predictable segments such as American English /t/ are likely to be reduced even when they are locally unpredictable, but usually-predictable segments are preserved even when they are redundant. I use four corpus studies to demonstrate that higher informativity leads to longer duration and reduced likelihood to delete even when other important factors such as the phonetic features, frequency, and local predictability of consonants are controlled for. The role of informativity in the duration and deletion rates of consonants can bridge the gap between phonetic performance and the actuation of phonological processes.},
number = {2},
journal = {Laboratory Phonology},
author = {Cohen Priva, Uriel},
month = may,
year = {2015},
pages = {243--278},
note = {(\href{https://urielcpublic.s3.amazonaws.com/CohenPriva-2015-LabPhon.html}{open access})},
}
*Uriel Cohen Priva and *Joseph Austerweil. 2015. Analyzing the history of Cognition using topic models. Cognition, 135: 4–9. (preprint, bib)
@article{CohenPrivaAusterweil2015,
author = {Cohen Priva, Uriel and Austerweil, Joseph},
title = {Analyzing the history of {C}ognition using topic models},
journal = {Cognition},
year = {2015},
volume = {135},
doi = {10.1016/j.cognition.2014.11.006},
pages = {4--9},
note = {(\href{http://urielcpublic.s3.amazonaws.com/CohenPrivaAusterweil2015-preprint.pdf}{preprint})},
}
*Inbal Arnon and *Uriel Cohen Priva. 2014. Time and again: The changing effect of word and multiword frequency on phonetic duration for highly frequent sequences. The Mental Lexicon, 9 (3): 377–400. (preprint, bib)
@article {ArnonCohenPriva2014MentalLexicon,
author = {Arnon, Inbal and Cohen Priva, Uriel},
title = {Time and again: {T}he changing effect of word and multiword frequency on phonetic duration for highly frequent sequences},
journal = {The Mental Lexicon},
volume = {9},
number = {3},
year = {2014},
abstract = {There is growing evidence that multiword information
affects processing. In this paper, we look at the
effect of word and multiword frequency on the
phonetic duration of words in spontaneous speech to
(a) extend previous findings and (b) ask whether the
relation between word and multiword information
changes across the frequency continuum. If highly
frequent sequences are stored holistically, then the
effect of word frequency should disappear. If
alternatively, increased sequence usage causes a
change in the prominence of word and multiword
information, we should see reduced effects of word
frequency, and increased effects of sequence
frequency for high frequency sequences. We first
extend previous findings by showing that trigram
frequency affects single word duration, even when
controlling for word predictability. We then show
that the effect of trigram frequency increases while
the effect of word frequency decreases — but
does not disappear — for highly frequent
sequences. The findings provide further support for
the effect of multiword information on processing
and document the growing prominence of multiword
information with repeated usage.},
pages = {377--400},
doi = {10.1075/ml.9.3.01arn},
keyword = {formulaic sequences, holistic storage, multiword frequency, phonetic duration, speech production, usage-based},
note = {(\href{http://arnonlanguagelab.huji.ac.il/images/arnon-cohen-priva-2014.pdf}{preprint})}
}
*Inbal Arnon and *Uriel Cohen Priva. 2013. More than words: The effect of multi-word frequency and constituency on phonetic duration. Language and Speech, 56 (3): 349–371. (preprint, bib)
@article{ArnonCohenPriva2013,
author = {Arnon, Inbal and Cohen Priva, Uriel},
title = {More than Words: The Effect of Multi-word Frequency and Constituency on Phonetic Duration},
year = {2013},
doi = {10.1177/0023830913484891},
url = {http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0023830913484891},
journal = {Language and Speech},
volume = {56},
number = {3},
pages = {349--371},
note = {(\href{http://arnonlanguagelab.huji.ac.il/images/Arnon-CohenPriva-More_than_words.pdf}{preprint})},
abstract = { There is mounting evidence that language users are sensitive to the distributional properties of multi-word sequences. Such findings expand the range of information speakers are sensitive to and call for processing models that can represent larger chains of relations. In the current paper we investigate the effect of multi-word statistics on phonetic duration using a combination of experimental and corpus-based research. We ask (a) if phonetic duration is affected by multi-word frequency in both elicited and spontaneous speech, and (b) if syntactic constituency modulates the effect. We show that phonetic durations are reduced in higher frequency sequences, regardless of constituency: duration is shorter for more frequent sequences within and across syntactic boundaries. The effects are not reducible to the frequency of the individual words or substrings. These findings open up a novel set of questions about the interaction between surface distributions and higher order properties, and the resulting need (or lack thereof) to incorporate higher order properties into processing models. }
}
Refereed conference proceedings
Uriel Cohen Priva, #Shiying Yang, and Emily Strand. 2020. The stability of segmental properties across genre and corpus types in low-resource languages. In SCiL proceedings. Society for Computation in Linguistics. (bib)
@inproceedings{CohenPrivaYangStrand2020Stability,
booktitle = {{SCiL} proceedings},
vol = {3},
organization = {Society for Computation in Linguistics},
author = {Cohen Priva, Uriel and Yang, Shiying and Strand, Emily},
title = {The stability of segmental properties across genre and corpus types in low-resource languages},
year = {2020},
doi = {10.7275/fttf-fq95},
}
Uriel Cohen Priva and Emily Gleason. 2018. The role of fast speech in sound change. In Proceedings of the 40th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, pages 1512–1517, Austin, TX. Cognitive Science Society. (pdf, bib)
@InProceedings{CohenPrivaGleason2018Cogsci,
author = {Cohen Priva, Uriel and Gleason, Emily},
title = {The role of fast speech in sound change},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 40th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society},
year = {2018},
editor = {},
pages = {1512--1517},
address = {Austin, TX},
organization = {Cognitive Science Society},
url = {http://mindmodeling.org/cogsci2018/papers/0293/index.html},
note = {(\href{http://urielcpublic.s3.amazonaws.com/CohenPriva_Gleason-2018-CogSci.html}{pdf})},
abstract = {Recent research has seen a surge in interest in the role of the individual in sound change processes. Do fast speakers have a unique role in sound change processes? Fast speech leads to greater rates of lenition (reduction) processes. But should it mean that fast talkers would be more likely to lenite even when speaking slowly? In two corpus studies we show that even when fast talkers speak more slowly they are (a) more likely to omit segments and (b) more likely to perform variable reduction of consonants. This draws attention to habitual speech rate as a likely cause in the actuation of lenition processes.}
}
*Uriel Cohen Priva and *Chelsea Sanker. 2018. Distinct behaviors in convergence across measures. In Proceedings of the 40th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, pages 1518–1523, Austin, TX. Cognitive Science Society. (pdf, bib)
@InProceedings{CohenPrivaSanker2018Cogsci,
author = {Cohen Priva, Uriel and Sanker, Chelsea},
title = {Distinct behaviors in convergence across measures},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 40th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society},
year = {2018},
editor = {},
pages = {1518--1523},
address = {Austin, TX},
organization = {Cognitive Science Society},
url = {http://mindmodeling.org/cogsci2018/papers/0294/index.html},
note = {(\href{http://urielcpublic.s3.amazonaws.com/CohenPriva_Sanker-2018-CogSci.html}{pdf})},
abstract = {We present data on convergence in the Switchboard corpus, addressing diffindividualserences across measures and across speakers. We measured convergence in four characteristics, to test consistency in related and unrelated measures: F0 median, F0 variance, speech rate, and odds of the fillers _uh_ and _um_. Convergence was significant in all measures and exhibited variation both between and within individuals. Most notably, convergence in one measure was not predictive of convergence in other measures, except between closely related measures. The results demonstrate some of the limitations of generalizing convergence results from one measure to other measures.}
}
#Shiying Yang, Chelsea Sanker, and Uriel Cohen Priva. 2018. The organization of lexicons: A cross-linguistic analysis of monosyllabic words. In SCiL proceedings, number 18. Society for Computation in Linguistics. (preprint, bib)
@InProceedings{YangSCiL2018,
author = {Yang, Shiying and Sanker, Chelsea and Cohen Priva, Uriel},
title = {The organization of lexicons: A cross-linguistic analysis of monosyllabic words},
booktitle = {{SCiL} proceedings},
year = {2018},
doi = {10.7275/R58P5XPZ},
vol = {1},
number = {18},
organization = {Society for Computation in Linguistics},
note = {(\href{http://urielcpublic.s3.amazonaws.com/YangSankerCohenPriva-SCiL-Corrected.pdf}{preprint})}
}
Uriel Cohen Priva and Emily Gleason. 2016. Simpler structure for more informative words: a longitudinal study. In A. Papafragou, D. Grodner, D. Mirman, and J.C. Trueswell, editors, Proceedings of the 38th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, pages 1895–1900, Austin, TX. Cognitive Science Society. (bib)
@InProceedings{CohenPrivaGleason2016Cogsci,
author = {Cohen Priva, Uriel and Gleason, Emily},
title = {Simpler structure for more informative words: a longitudinal study},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 38th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society},
year = {2016},
editor = {Papafragou, A. and Grodner, D. and Mirman, D. and Trueswell, J.C.},
pages = {1895--1900},
month = {August},
address = {Austin, TX},
organization = {Cognitive Science Society},
url = {https://mindmodeling.org/cogsci2016/papers/0331/index.html},
abstract = {As new concepts and discoveries accumulate over time, the amount of information available to speakers increases as well. One would expect that an utterance today would be more informative than an utterance 100 years ago (basing information on surprisal; Shannon 1948), given the increase in technology and scientific discoveries. This prediction, however, is at odds with recent theories regarding information in human language use, which suggest that speakers maintain a somewhat constant information rate over time. Using the Google Ngram corpus (Michel et al. 2011), we show for multiple languages that changes in lexical information (a unigram model) are actually negatively correlated with changes in structural information (a trigram model), supporting recent proposals on information theoretic constraints.}
}
Uriel Cohen Priva. 2010. Constructing typing-time corpora: A new way to answer old questions. In S. Ohlsson and R. Catrambone, editors, Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, pages 43–48, Austin, TX. Cognitive Science Society. (bib)
@InProceedings{CogSci2010,
author = {Cohen Priva, Uriel},
title = {Constructing typing-time corpora: {A} new way to answer old questions},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society},
pages = {43--48},
year = {2010},
editor = {S. Ohlsson and R. Catrambone},
address = {Austin, TX},
publisher = {Cognitive Science Society},
url = {https://mindmodeling.org/cogsci2010/papers/0006/index.html}
}
Conference proceedings (refereed abstract)
*Uriel Cohen Priva and *Roey J Gafter. 2024. The actuation of unstressed /a/-raising in Modern Hebrew. In Selected Papers from NWAV 51, volume 30 of University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics. (bib)
@InProceedings{CohenPrivaGafter2024Penn,
author = {Cohen Priva, Uriel and Gafter, Roey J},
title = {The actuation of unstressed /a/-raising in {Modern Hebrew}},
booktitle = {Selected Papers from {NWAV} 51},
year = {2024},
url = {https://repository.upenn.edu/handle/20.500.14332/60612},
series = {University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics},
volume = {30},
issue = {2},
abstract = {This paper investigates an unexplored variation pattern in Modern Hebrew: unstressed /a/-raising. While existing research confirms that unstressed Hebrew vowels are typically shorter than stressed vowels, data that we elicited from 30 Hebrew speakers show that unstressed /a/ is often realized higher as well. While this is in line with the general articulatory bias to raise non high vowels when their duration is short (Flemming 2004; Cohen Priva and Strand 2023), for some of the speakers the tendency appears to be phonologized. Furthermore, we show that there are considerable differences in the degree to which speakers yield to this articulatory bias, with many appearing to be able to resist the phonetic pressure altogether. We argue that these findings are not consistent with a view of sound change in which yielding to contextual effects is random (Ohala 2003). We therefore call for a combined model that extends current variationist approaches, integrating the extent of speakers’ compliance with phonetic biases as an additional parameter in the study of sound change.}
}
Uriel Cohen Priva. 2008. Using information content to predict phone deletion. In N. Abner and J. Bishop, editors, Proceedings of the 27th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, pages 90–98, Somerville, MA, USA. Cascadilla Proceedings Project. (bib)
@InProceedings{WCCFL2008,
title = {Using Information Content to Predict Phone Deletion},
pages = {90--98},
author = {Cohen Priva, Uriel},
key = {Cohen Priva, Uriel},
year = {2008},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 27th West Coast Conference on Formal
Linguistics},
editor = {N. Abner and J. Bishop},
address = {Somerville, MA, USA},
publisher = {Cascadilla Proceedings Project},
url = {http://www.lingref.com/cpp/wccfl/27/abstract1820.html}
}
Conference presentations
Elinor Amit, Meyrav Shoham, Uriel Cohen Priva, and Yael Steinhart, 2024. Worth repeating: Numerical repetition appeals to consumers. Association for Consumer Research Conference.
Uriel Cohen Priva, 2024. The XPF Corpus: Rule-based grapheme to phoneme translation schemes for hundreds of languages. CorpusPhon.
Uriel Cohen Priva and Chelsea Sanker, 2024. Switchboard speakers’ vowels’ covary, but they do not converge. LabPhone satellite workshop on phonetic imitation.
Uriel Cohen Priva and Roey J. Gafter, 2023. The actuation of unstressed /a/-raising in modern hebrew. Extended talk presented at New Ways of Analyzing Variation (NWAV) 51.
Elinor Amit, Meyrav Shoham, Yael Steinhart, and Uriel Cohen Priva, 2023. Simply appealing: How numerical algorithmic complexity affects product preferences. Talk presented at Society for Consumer Psychology (SCP).
Uriel Cohen Priva, 2022. Using mixed effects models for vowel normalization. Talk presented at New Ways of Analyzing Variation (NWAV) 50.
Meyrav Shoham, Elinor Amit, Yael Steinhart, and Uriel Cohen Priva, 2022. Why low-complexity numbers appeal to consumers. Poster presented at the European Marketing Academy Conference.
Meyrav Shoham, Elinor Amit, Yael Steinhart, and Uriel Cohen Priva, 2021. Some numbers are more equal than others: How and why orderly numbers appeal to consumers. Presented at the Association for Consumer Research Conference.
#Daniela Wiepert, #Rebecca Mathew, and Uriel Cohen Priva, 2021. Demonstrating constraint universality using large cross-linguistic corpora. Poster presented at 39th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics.
Uriel Cohen Priva and Emily Gleason, 2020. Utilizing mediation to understand variable consonant lenition. Presented online at Laboratory Phonology 17.
Uriel Cohen Priva, Shiying Yang, and Emily Strand, 2020. The stability of segmental properties across genre and corpus types in low-resource languages. Presented at the Society for Computation in Linguistics annual meeting.
Uriel Cohen Priva, 2020. American english vowels do not reduce to schwa: A corpus study. Poster presented at the Linguistic Society of America annual meeting.
Uriel Cohen Priva and Emily Gleason, 2020. Increased intensity is mediated by reduced duration in variable consonant lenition. Presented at the Linguistic Society of America annual meeting.
Uriel Cohen Priva and Chelsea Sanker, 2018. Convergence is predicted by particular interlocutors and interactions, not speakers. Presented at Workshop on Accommodation in Speech Communication.
Uriel Cohen Priva and Emily Gleason, 2018. Reduced duration is the likely cause of consonant lenition. Presented at IATL 34.
Uriel Cohen Priva and Emily Gleason, 2018. The indirect effect of low information content on lenition processes. Presented at The role of predictability in shaping human sound systems workshop, at Lisbon.
#Shiying Yang, Chelsea Sanker, and Uriel Cohen Priva, 2018. The organization of lexicons: A cross-linguistic analysis of monosyllabic words. Poster presented at SCiL: Society for Computation in Linguistics annual meeting.
Uriel Cohen Priva and Emily Gleason, 2018. The role of fast speech in sound change. Poster presented at 40th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
Uriel Cohen Priva and Chelsea Sanker, 2018. Distinct behaviors in convergence across measures. Poster presented at 40th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
Uriel Cohen Priva, 2017. Relative low informativity licenses lenition. Presented at XLanS: Triggers of language change in the Language Science, at Lyon.
Uriel Cohen Priva and Emily Gleason, 2017. Reduction in duration as a cause for lenition. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting on Phonology at NYU.
Uriel Cohen Priva, 2017. Outperforming typological frequency as a markedness baseline. Presented at Markedness: Perspectives in Morphology and Phonology workshop at Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt.
Uriel Cohen Priva and Emily Gleason, 2017. The role of fast speech in sound change. Poster presented at The 4th International Workshop on Sound Change (WSC4).
Uriel Cohen Priva and Emily Gleason, 2016. Simpler structure for more informative words: a longitudinal study. Presented at the 38th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
Uriel Cohen Priva and Emily Gleason, 2016. Estimating segments’ cost using cross-linguistic information. Poster presented at Laboratory Phonology 15.
Uriel Cohen Priva and Emily Gleason, 2016. Using topic models to investigate framing words in discourse. Presented at the 2nd Usage-Based Linguistics Conference.
#Megan Keough and Uriel Cohen Priva, 2015. Even in Berber: Complex codas in Imdlawn Tashlhiyt Berber as evidence against strict domination. Presented at the 89th Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America.
Inbal Arnon and Uriel Cohen Priva, 2014. Time and again: The changing effect of word and multiword frequency on phonetic duration for highly frequent sequences. poster presented at the Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing (AMLaP) Conference.
Uriel Cohen Priva, 2014. Informativity licenses word-final lention. presented at Sound Change in Interacting Human Systems 3rd Biennial Workshop on Sound Change University of California, Berkeley.
Inbal Arnon and Uriel Cohen Priva, 2013. More than words: the effect of multi-word frequency and constituency on phonetic duration. presented at ICLC-12.
Uriel Cohen Priva, 2013. Information-based licensing of sound change processes. presented at workshop on Sound Change Actuation at University of Chicago.
Inbal Arnon and Uriel Cohen Priva, 2013. More than words: the effect of multi-word frequency and constituency on phonetic duration. presented at CUNY 2013.
Uriel Cohen Priva, 2012. The relationship between segment frequency and phonetic effort. Presented at NECPhon 2012.
Uriel Cohen Priva, 2012. Information utility promotes preservation. Presented at the 85th Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America.
Uriel Cohen Priva and Dan Jurafsky, 2012. Language matches information content with perceptual prominence. Presented at the 85th Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America.
Uriel Cohen Priva, 2010. Constructing typing-time corpora: A new way to answer old questions. 32nd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
Matthew E. Adams, Katrin Schweitzer, and Uriel Cohen Priva, 2009. Crosslinguistic support for information theoretic effects: A study of German phonology. Presented at the 83rd Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America.
Uriel Cohen Priva, 2008. Using information content to predict phone deletion. 27th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics.
Uriel Cohen Priva and Dan Jurafsky, 2008. Phone information content influences phone duration. Poster at Experimental and Theoretical Advances in Prosody conference, Cornell University.
Invited talks
December 2020. Understanding lenition through its causal structure. Invited talk at Tel Aviv University’s Linguistics Department Colloquium.
January 2020. Understanding lenition through its causal structure. Presented at Northwestern University’s Phonatics series.
September 2019. Understanding lenition through its causal structure. Presented at the UPenn ILST seminar.
June 2019. Understanding lenition through its causal structure. Presented at the Hebrew Univesity in Jerusalem Linguistics Colloquium.
December 2018. The indirect path from low information to lenition. Presented at the Ohio State University.
October 2018. Information flooding (and what we do about it). Presented at Northeastern University.
January 2018. Language change from an information theoretic perspective. Presented at the Colloquium of the Department of Hebrew Language at Ben-Gurion University.
January 2018. Information flooding (and what we do about it). Presented at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
November 2017. An interplay between information, duration, and lenition. Invited talk at the Colloquium of the Department of Linguistics at the University of Arizona.
March 2017. An interplay between information, duration, and lenition. Invited talk at Language and Computation Discussion Group at MIT.
December 2016. An interplay between information, duration, and lenition. Invited speaker at Effects of Uncertainty and their Reflection in Language, Sydney, Australia.
January 2016. Differences between information in language and artificial communication systems. Invited talk at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
January 2016. Differences between information in language and artificial communication systems. Distinguished Lecturer series (Language Science colloquium), Saarland University.
May 2015. Differences between information in language and artificial communication systems. Invited talk at MIT.
January 2014. Informational constraints. Invited talk at Tel Aviv University’s Linguistics Department Colloquium.
January 2014. Information motivates preservation. Invited talk at the Hebrew University’s Linguistics Department Colloquium.
December 2012. Providing universal explanations for language-specific change. Invited talk at Yale University’s Linguistics Department Colloquium.
November 2012. Providing universal explanations for language-specific change. Invited talk at Harvard University’s Linguistics Department Colloquium.
November 2011. Information utility promotes preservation. Invited talk at Ben Gurion University’s Linguistics Department Colloquium.
December 2010. Faithfulness as information utility: addressing the actuation problem. Invited talk at Tel Aviv University’s Linguistics Department Colloquium.
November 2010. Faithfulness as information utility: addressing the actuation problem. Invited talk at Berkeley Phonetics and Phonology Forum.
January 2009. Phone informativity: function and grammar. Invited talk at Tel Aviv University’s Linguistics Department Colloquium.
June 2008. Phone informativity. Invited talk at Institute for Natural Language Processing, Universität Stuttgart.
Teaching
Instructor
Introduction to Linguistics, Brown University, 2017, 2019, 2021
Phonology, Brown University, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2019, 2020 (spring and fall), 2022
Introduction to Corpus Linguistics, Brown University, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021
Information Theory in Language, Brown University, 2018, 2020
Topics in Phonetics and Phonology: Lenition, Brown University, 2018
UTRA (Undergraduate Training and Research Award) advisor, Brown University, 2016
Topics in Phonetics and Phonology: Information theory in language, Brown University, 2016
Topics in Phonetics and Phonology: how phonetics shapes phonology, 2014
OS/390 and CICS, IBM and Novelya (now Tangram Soft), 2002-2006
Advising
Postdoc adviser: Stefon Flego
Graduate student adviser: Lee Edelist, Shiying Yang, Bruno Ferenc Segedin
Honors thesis adviser: Lauren Bilsky, Megan Keough, Guy Tabachnik, Daniela Wiepert, Becky Mathew
Dissertation committee: Lauren Franklin, Ori Lavi (HUJI Psychology), Ben Swanson (CS)
Prelim committee: Lauren Franklin, Shiying Yang
First year / qualifying paper committee: Lee Edelist, Shiying Yang, Bruno Ferenc Segedin, Lauren Franklin, Youtao Lu, Yiming Gu, Steven Emet, Sydney Zink (CS)
Teaching Assistant
Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology, Stanford University (2 sections), 2010
Professor: Meghan SumnerCorpus TA, Stanford University, 2009-10
Foundations of Linguistic Theory (graduate class), Stanford University, 2008
Professor: Paul KiparskyIntroduction to Linguistic Meaningm Stanford University, 2008
Professor: Adrian BrasoveanuIntroduction to Semantics, Tel Aviv University (3 sections), 2005
Professor: Nirit Kadmon
Awards
Mellon Dissertation Fellowship, 2011
Stanford Centennial Teaching Assistant Award, 2011
Posis Scholarship for academic excellence, 2004
Margalit and Topler Scholarship, 2004
Interdisciplinary Program for Outstanding Students in Tel Aviv University (four-year full academic scholarship), 2001
Professional Service
Linguistics director of undergraduate studies, 2023–
Linguistics concentration adviser, 2019–2022
Interim graduate adviser, 2021-2022
First year and sophomore advisor, Brown University, 2017-2020
Ling Lang Lunch faculty coordinator, Brown University, 2013-2019
Acting Linguistics concentration advisor, Fall 2016
Journal reviewer (selected): Language, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Laboratory Phonology, Cognition, Cognitive Science, Linguistic Vanguard, JASA (Journal of the Acoustical Society of America), Language Variation and Change, Journal of Phonetics
Conference reviewer (selected): Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, Linguistic Society of America Annual Conference, Laboratory Phonology Bi-annual Conference, CUNY Conference, GLOW (Generative Linguistics in the Old World)
Member, Graduate Admissions Committee, Stanford University, 2010
Member, Corpus Committee, Stanford University, 2009
Member, Graduate Studies Committee, Stanford University, 2008
Computer lab administrator, 2007 LSA Linguistic Institute, Stanford University
Popular media (selected)
WAMC Northeast Public Radio. The Academic Minute
The London Times. Speakers who take their time say much more
Die Welt. Menschen, die schnell sprechen, sagen oft nicht so viel
Danish Broadcasting Corporation. Forsker: Hurtig-snakkere siger faktisk mindre
Sky TG24. Parlare velocemente non cambia il numero di informazioni trasmesse
Daily Mail. Fast talkers AREN’T effective communicator
