Jiayu Liang

About Me

I’m a research assistant in the Speech, Learning, and the Brain (SLaB) Lab at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, working under the mentorship of Prof. Zhen QIN. Before joining the lab, I was supervised by Prof. Hao ZHANG for my undergraduate studies. I’m interested in experimental phonetics, second/foreign language acquisition, and psycholinguistics. Currently, I am mainly involved in an eye-tracking study examining L2 learners’ perceptual learning and consolidation of English lexical stress.

Education

BA in English at Shandong University (Average Grade: 88.71/100) [2020-2024]

Relevant Courses
English Phonetics (96), Phonetics and Brain Science (Excellent), Experimental Phonetics (92), Experimental Methods and the Application of Instruments in Phonetics (95), Cognitive Neuroscience Experiment (90), Corpus Linguistics (93), Python and Natural Language Processing (94)

Research Interests

• Production and Perception of Non-native Languages
• Cross-domain Transfer Effects between Music and Language Experience
• Age-related Differences in Language Learning

Publications & Presentations

Liang, J., Ma, W., Zhang, Y., Zhang, H. Effects of Mandarin Speakers’ Musical Aptitude on the Perception of English Vowels: An Eye-tracking Study. (Manuscript in preparation)

Liang, J., Zhang, H. Mandarin-speaking Musicians Show Enhanced Perception-Production Link of L2 English Vowels. (Manuscript in preparation)

Zhang, H., Liang, J. (co-first author). Benefits of Melodic Training on the Production and Perception of Cantonese Level Tones by Korean and Chinese Older Adults. (in preparation)

Liang, J., Zhang, H. (2024). Effects of Mandarin Speakers’ Musical Aptitude on the Perception of English Vowels: An Eye-tracking Study. In The 15th International Conference in Evolutionary Linguistics (CIEL2024), Changsha, Hunan. (poster)

Liang, J., Zhang, H. (2023). Perception-Production Links in Mandarin Speakers’ English Vowels: A Behavioral and Eye-tracking Study. In The 2nd National Symposium on Clinical Linguistics (NSCL2023), Jinan, Shandong. (oral presentation)

Liang, J., Jia, B., Liu, J., Li, X., Zhang, H. (2023). Music Experience Enhances Categorical Perception of English Vowels in Mandarin Speakers. In The 14th International Conference in Evolutionary Linguistics (CIEL2023), Hong Kong. (poster)

Liang, J., Jia, B., Liu, J., Li, X., Zhang, H. (2023). Music Experience Enhances Categorical Perception of English Vowels in Mandarin Speakers. In The 15th Phonetic Conference of China (PCC2023), Shenzhen, Guangdong. (oral presentation)

Research Experience

• Adult Second-language Learners’ Consolidation of Cantonese Tones during Daytime Naps: the Role of Prior Knowledge
  [Present]
  • Assisted in conducting EEG experiments.
  • Assisted in EEG sleep staging.
• Enhancing the Perception and Recognition of Spoken Words in a Second Language: A Cue-Weighting Approach
  [Present]
  • Assisted in the setup of eye-tracking experiments.
  • Recruited and conducted experiments with 20 participants.
• Effects of Tone Types and Bilingual Experiences on Forced-attention Dichotic Task in Cantonese-speaking Older Adults
  [2024.09-2024.11]
  • Recruited and conducted experiments with 20 Cantonese-speaking older adults.
• Efficacy of Melodic Training and Sleep-mediated Memory Consolidation in Learning Cantonese Level Tones by Mandarin-speaking Younger Adults
  [2024.04-Present]
  • Conducted extensive literature review.
  • Recruited 80 Mandarin-speaking college students to engage in the music training program and associated assessments, developed in the previous study.
• Benefits of Melodic Training on the Production and Perception of Cantonese Level Tones by Korean and Chinese Older Adults
  [2023.11-Present]
  • Conducted comprehensive literature review.
  • Developed and implemented a Melodic Height Identification Training program and associated assessments (identification and discrimination tests), utilizing JavaScript (jsPsych).
  • Recruited and conducted experiments with 30 participants, including 15 Korean and 15 Chinese older adults.
  • Employed Montreal Forced Aligner for automatic annotation of production data, and automatically extracted of F0 values.
  • Analyzed participants' tone differentiability and hit rate to evaluate production performance and generated tone overlap plots.
  • Transformed perception data (accuracy percentages) into rationalized arcsine units (RAUs) for statistical analysis.
  • Performed statistical analysis
• Perception-Production Links in Mandarin Speakers' English Vowels: A Behavioral and Eye-tracking Study
  [2023.07-2024.07]
  • Conducted thorough literature review and synthesized experimental stimuli.
  • Designed eye-tracking experiments with Experiment Builder.
  • Recruited and conducted eye-tracking experiments with 60 college students.
  • Employed automatic annotation for production data using SPPAS and DARLA, and automatic extraction of F1 and F2 values in MATLAB (VoiceSauce).
  • Calculated participants' boundary width in Python to assess perception performance.
  • Processed eye-movement data in R (eyetrackingR) and calculated the difference between the empirical log-transformed proportions of target and competitor fixations.
  • Calculated participants' Pillai score in R to measure vowel overlap and plotted vowel overlap using F1 and F2 values in R (ggplot2).
  • Conducted LME and Growth Curve Analysis (GCA) in R (lme4).
  • Wrote the manuscript.
• Music Experience Enhances Categorical Perception of English Vowels in Mandarin Speakers
  [2023.03-2023.06]
  
  • Conducted literature review, synthesized and manipulated experimental stimuli using MATLAB (TANDEM-STRAIGHT).
  • Recruited 24 college students for participation.
  • Designed and executed experiments in PsychoPy.
  • Performed ANOVA and Pearson correlation analysis in Python (Pandas).
  • Wrote the manuscript.

Service

• Research assistant at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology [2024-2025]
• Research assistant at Shandong University [2023-2024]

Awards

• College Students’ Innovative and Entrepreneurial Training Program Funding Supported by Shandong University [2022]
• The Third-Class Undergraduate Academic Scholarship [2021]

Skills

• Programming: Python, R, JavaScript and MATLAB
• Language proficiency: Mandarin (native), Cantonese (native) and English (IELTS score: 8.0)