Molly Erickson, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Speech-Language Pathology

Email: merickso@utk.edu

Dr. Molly Erickson received a Bachelor of Music degree in vocal performance from California State University, Sacramento, and a Master of Music degree in vocal arts from the University of Southern California School of Music where she studied with the well known vocal pedagogue, Thomas Cleveland.  She received her Ph.D. in Speech Science and Technology from the University of Southern California and then completed a clinical Master of Arts degree in Speech Pathology at the University of Florida.  Dr. Erickson received clinical voice training from Paul Moore at the University of Florida and from Ed Stone and Thomas Cleveland at the Vanderbilt Voice Center.  Currently she is an assistant professor in the Department of Audiology and Speech Pathology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and a member of the Knoxville Opera Company.  Dr. Erickson's areas of interest include performance and evaluation of stroboscopic voice examinations, spasmodic dysphonia, multicultural voice issues, perception of the singing voice, and durational modeling of speech in normal and impaired populations.  For her work in the perception of singing, in 2000 Dr. Erickson was named a Senior Fulbright Research Scholar to Stockholm Sweden where she worked with Johan Sundberg and Sten Ternstrom to develop a synthesis model capable of generating a variety of singing voice stimuli necessary for perceptual research.  

Education

Ph.D., Speech Science and Technology, University of Southern California
M.A., Communication Processes and Disorders, University of Florida
M.M., Vocal Arts, University of Southern California, School of Music
B.M., Vocal Performance, California State University, Sacramento
 

Recent Publications

Erickson, M. L. (2000). Simultaneous Effects on the Duration of Syllable Nuclei: A Covariance Structure Analysis Approach. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 108(6), 2980-2995.

Erickson, M. L., Perry, S., & Handel, S. (2001). Discrimination Functions: Can They Be Used to Classify Singing Voices? Journal of Voice, 15(4), 492-502.

Handel, S. & Erickson, M. L. (2001). A Rule of Thumb: The Bandwidth for Timbre Invariance is One Octave. Music Perception, 19(1), 121-126.

Erickson, M. L., & D’Alfonso, A. E. (2002). A comparison of two methods of formant frequency estimation for high-pitched voices. Journal of Voice, 16(2), 147-171.

Erickson, M. L. (2003). Dissimilarity and the Classification of Female Voices: A Preliminary Study. Journal of Voice, 17(2), 195-206.

Erickson, M. L. (2003). Effects of voicing and syntactic complexity on sign expression in adductor spasmodic dysphonia. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 12, 416-424.

Erickson, M. L., & Perry S. (2003). Can Listeners Hear Who Is Singing? A Comparison of Three-note and Six-Note Discrimination Tasks. Journal of Voice, 17(3), 352-368.

Handel, S. & Erickson, M. L. (2003). Parallels between hearing and seeing support physicalism. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 26, 31-32.

Erickson, M. L. (2004). The interaction of formant frequency and pitch in the perception of voice category and jaw opening in female singers. Journal of Voice, 18(1), 24-37.

Voice and Speech Science Laboratory
 

The Voice and Speech Science Research Laboratory is designed to conduct research both at the Master's and Ph.D. levels in the areas of voice and speech science. Current and future research include:

• spasmodic dysphonia
• acoustic and physiology of singing
• acoustics of cultural diversity
• normative data - vocal physiology
• experimental phonetics - duration modeling

Currently, the laboratory is working on three projects. The first project consists of a series of psychoacoustic studies designed to develop a quantitative model of classical singing voice classification. At this time, this research is examining the relevant perceptual and acoustic parameters of vocal timbre in singers and the relationship of these parameters to classical singing voice classification. The second project examines the aerodynamic and acoustic characteristics of speakers of English as a second language whose first language is Spanish. The third project is a series of studies attempting to develop a quantitative model of vowel duration in normal speakers. Further studies will examine how this model differs in populations such as English as a second language speakers or hearing impaired speakers.
 
 

Equipment  

The Voice and Speech Science Research Laboratory is equipped with a large sound booth for recording speakers and professional singers.

The laboratory boasts equipment and software capable of performing a variety of research tasks: a Glottal Enterprises system for air flow analysis, subglottal air pressure measurement, and 2-channel electroglottograph and inverse filtering via C-Speech.Signal analysis software available include the Computerized Speech Laboratory and the Multi-Dimensional Voice Profile from Kay Elemetrics, C-Speech, CSRE, Cool Edit, and a variety of programs used to produce real-time spectrograms and Fast Fourier Analysis.

The laboratory has available several methods of signal synthesis: signal generation hardware and software from Tucker-Davis Technologies, a Klatt synthesizer as  implemented in CSRE, and a singing voice synthesizer built using Aladdin. Perceptual experiments are designed and conducted using a variety of software and hardware combinations.

The Voice and Speech Science Research Laboratory also is equipped with a Kay Elemetrics stroboscopy system that is used to visualize the vocal folds for both voice physiology research and clinical diagnostics.