Jabber with abandon with Martijn Wieling at Lowlands Science

It is well known that alcohol consumption has a negative impact on speech. So what happens when you speak a foreign language? Research suggests that the impact in this case is positive, but it is unclear what happens inside the mouth. Dr Martijn Wieling from the University of Groningen will be using ultrasound to chart festival-goers’ tongue movements.

‘It is really exciting to be taking part in Lowlands Science!’, says Martijn Wieling. ‘Not only can we collect a vast amount of data in a very short time, this is also a great way to introduce speech research to the general public.’

Lowlands Science

The Lowlands Festival attracts 60,000 visitors every year. Music, theatre, comedy and culture take centre stage. For the past three years, Lowlands Science has been an important part of the programme as well; visitors queue daily to join in the wide range of experiments. There is an elaborate lab on the festival grounds where visitors become subjects in experiments, all in the interests of science. Previous editions of Lowlands Science, in 2015, 2016 and 2017, were a great hit among both festival-goers and participating scientists. Lowlands 2018 willl be held on 17, 18 and 19 August.

Martijn Wieling

Martijn Wieling is Assistant Professor of Information Science at the University of Groningen. He investigates differences in speech using articulography. In 2016 he won the prestigious European Young Researchers Award. In 2015 he was appointed a member The Young Academy of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has been vice-chair since 2018. See the UG website for more information on Martijn Wieling’s research: