Dr. Laura C. Dilley Est. 2024
Linguist · Cognitive Scientist · AI Consultant

Dr. L.C. Dilley Linguist, AI Consultant & Educator

Two decades studying how the human mind turns sound into meaning — the pitch, timing, and rhythm of speech — now brought to bear on artificial intelligence and the language models reshaping how we work.

Joint Harvard–MIT PhD NSF CAREER Awardee 6,000+ citations
6,000+
Scholarly citations across two decades of research
h·39
h-index — sustained, peer-recognized impact
PhD
Linguistics, Speech & Hearing Bioscience — Harvard & MIT
Principal Investigator
Speech Perception & Production Lab · Tenured professorship, Michigan State University (2009–2026)
01 Currently

What I'm working on now.

The throughline of my career has been the science of spoken language. Today that work is moving from the lab into practice — helping organizations use AI and language models with rigor, and building a small portfolio of language-focused ventures.

AI Consulting

Linguist AI Consulting

Advising teams on language models, speech and prosody, evaluation, and the responsible deployment of generative AI — grounded in cognitive science, not hype.

linguist.consulting →
Public Scholarship

@LinguistProf on YouTube

Translating linguistics and the science of language and AI for a general audience — the research behind why machines, and people, hear what they hear.

youtube.com/@LinguistProf →
Ventures

luscious.domains Launching soon

A curated portfolio of premium, language-rich domain names — the naming layer for a new generation of products.

luscious.domains →
02 Research

What the science actually found.

A selection of findings from my peer-reviewed work, in plain English — the kind of results that change how you think about listening, learning, and now, machines that process language.

I

The speed of speech can make you hear words that were never spoken.

My team showed that the speech rate of the words around a sound changes which words listeners actually perceive — fast or slow context can conjure a word that isn't acoustically there, or erase one that is. It's the mechanism behind why a generation misheard Neil Armstrong's first words on the Moon, and the work drew wide press coverage.

Dilley, L.C. & Pitt, M.A. (2010). Altering context speech rate can cause words to appear or disappear. Psychological Science.
Speech perceptionProsody
II

Rhythm and pitch aren't decoration — they're how the brain finds the words.

Much of my research maps prosody: the melody and timing of speech. The finding that runs through it is that pitch and rhythm are structural. The brain uses them to decide where one word ends and the next begins, long before meaning is consciously computed.

ProsodyPsycholinguistics
III

How children pull words out of a stream of sound with no gaps in it.

Spoken language has no spaces — yet infants learn to segment it into words anyway. My lab studies how listeners, especially developing ones, tune into the rhythmic patterns of their native language to crack that code.

Language developmentSpoken word recognition
IV

The same lens, turned on generative AI in real professional practice.

My most recent work brings the science of language to AI itself: qualitative evidence on where generative AI helps, where it quietly fails, and how to use it responsibly in high-stakes clinical settings.

Reuter, M., Philippone, M., Benton, B. & Dilley, L.C. (2025). Generative AI in clinical practice: novel qualitative evidence of risk and responsible use of Google's NotebookLM. Eye (Nature). DOI: 10.1038/s41433-025-03817-y
Generative AIResponsible AI
03 In the Press

When the research left the lab.

The work on how context warps what we hear — including the Armstrong misquote finding — was picked up widely. A selection of coverage.

The "One Small Step" Study 07 outlets
The Atlantic USAClick to read the article → BBC United KingdomClick to read the article → NBC News USAClick to read the article → Fox News USAClick to read the article → Los Angeles Times USAClick to read the article → CNN USAClick to read the article → Popular Science USAClick to read the article →
Online Networks & Disinformation 03 outlets
Business Insider USAClick to read the article → CICAP ItalyClick to read the article → Wereldbrand NetherlandsClick to read the article →
04 Teaching & Courses

Bringing the science to people who can use it.

Teaching has always been half the work. These are the places I make linguistics, cognitive science, and AI legible for students, professionals, and the curious.

Video · Free

@LinguistProf

Short, rigorous explainers on language, speech, and AI — the lecture hall, opened up for everyone.

Watch on YouTube→
Courses · Coming soon

ProfessorLM

Structured courses on language, language models, and applied cognitive science — for teams and individuals who want depth, not buzzwords.

Learn more→
◆ Premium · x402 gated

The Research-to-Practice Briefing

A focused briefing translating the latest speech, prosody, and language-model research into decisions your team can act on. Unlock with a single USDC micropayment.

05 Contact

Let's put the science
to work.

I consult with teams building, buying, and deploying language AI — and with organizations who want the research, not the hype. If that's you, start here.

Work with me at linguist.consulting →
Or book a 25-minute call →
Also on languages.expert · @LinguistProf · @profdilley · luscious.domains