Motor Neuroscience Laboratory

Matthew Masapollo, PhD
Research Associate

Ph.D. Communications Sciences and Disorders, McGill University

Tel.: +1-514-398-6111
Email: matthew.masapollo@mcgill.ca


Dr. Masapollo is a research associate in the Motor Neuroscience Laboratory at McGill University (PI: D.J. Ostry). He received his Ph.D. in Communication Sciences and Disorders from McGill (under Dr. Linda Polka), and completed two postdoctoral fellowships, one in Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Science at Brown University (under Dr. James L. Morgan), and one in Speech, Language, and Hearing Science at Boston University (under Dr. Frank H. Guenther).

The overarching goal of Dr. Masapollo’s research program is elucidating how the brain produces coordinated speech movements, how speech motor coordination patterns are learned; and how the sensory systems contribute to the control of coordinated speech movements. He investigates these fundamental questions by drawing on a wide range of techniques and methodologies, including acoustic analysis of speech, kinematic analyses of speech articulator movements (EMA), and functional brain imaging (fMRI).


Journal Articles


Masapollo, M., +Zezas, E., +Shamsi, A., Wayland, R., +Smith, D.J., & Guenther, F.H. (2023). Disentangling effects of working memory storage and inter-articulator coordination on generalization in speech motor sequence learning. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research.

Masapollo, M., & Nittrouer, S. (2023). Inter-articulator speech coordination: timing is of the essence. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 66(3), 901-915. Supplemental Material.

Masapollo, M., Wayland, R., +Goel, J., +Sengupta, R., +Shamsi, A., & Hegland, K.W. (2022). An investigation of interference between electromagnetic articulography and electroglottography. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Express Letters, 2(9), 095204-1-8.

Polka, L., Masapollo, M., & Ménard, L. (2021). Setting the stage for speech production: Infants prefer listening to speech sounds with infant vocal resonances. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 65: 109-120.

Masapollo, M., Nittrouer, S., +Goel, J., & Oh, Y. (2021). Electromagnetic articulography appears feasible for assessment of speech motor skills in cochlear implant users. Journal of Acoustical Society of America Express Letters, 1(10), 105202 (Featured on the issue cover of JASA-EL; Dean’s Citation Paper Award)

Polka, L., Molnar, M., Zhao, C.T., Masapollo, M. (2021). Neurophysiological correlates of asymmetries in vowel perception: an English-French cross-linguistic ERP study. Special issue in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, entitled, “Phonological Representations and Mismatch Negativity Asymmetries.” Jun 3;15:607148

Frankford, S.A., Heller Murray, E.S., Masapollo, M., Shanqing, C., Tourville, J., Nieto-Castañón, A., & Guenther, F.H. (2021). The neural circuitry underlying the “rhythm effect” in stuttering. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 64(6S), 2325-2346. 

Liu, Y.Y., Polka, L., Masapollo, M., & Ménard, L. (2021). Disentangling the roles of formant proximity and stimulus prototypicality in adult vowel perception. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Express Letters, Jan;1 (1):015201.

Masapollo, M., Segawa, J.A., Beal, D., Tourville, J., Nieto-Castañón, A., Heyne, M., Frankford, S., & Guenther, F.H. (2020). Neural correlates of speech motor sequence learning in stuttering and neurotypical adult speakers: an fMRI investigation. Neurobiology of Language, 2 (1): 106–137.

Masapollo, M., & Guenther, F.H. (2019). Engaging the articulators enhances perception of concordant visible speech movements. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 62, 3679-3688.

Zhao, T.C., Masapollo, M., Polka, L., Ménard, L., & Kuhl, P.K. (2019). Effects of formant proximity and stimulus prototypicality on the neural discrimination of vowels: Evidence from the auditory frequency-following response. Brain and Language, 194, 77-83.

Segawa, J.A., Masapollo, M., Tong, M., Smith, D.J. & Guenther, F.H. (2019). Chunking of phonological units in speech sequencing. Brain and Language,195 (May), 104636.

Masapollo, M., Zhao, T.C., Franklin, L., & Morgan, J.L. (2019). Asymmetric discrimination of non-speech tonal analogues of vowels. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 45(2), 285-300.

Masapollo, M., Polka, L., Ménard, L., Franklin, L., Tiede, M., & Morgan, J.L. (2018). Asymmetries in unimodal visual vowel perception: The roles of oral-facial kinematics, orientation and configuration. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 44(7), 1103-1118.

Masapollo, M., Polka, L., & Ménard, L. (2017). A universal bias in adult vowel perception – By ear or by eye. Cognition, 166, 358-370.

Masapollo, M., Polka, L., Molnar, M., & Ménard, L. (2017). Directional asymmetries reveal a universal bias in adult vowel perception. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 141(4), 2857-2869.

Masapollo, M., Polka, L., & Ménard, L. (2016). When infants talk, infants listen: Pre-babbling infants prefer infant speech. Developmental Science, 19(2), 318-328.

Polka, L., Masapollo, M., & Ménard, L. (2014). Who’s talking now? Infants’ perception of vowels with infant vocal properties. Psychological Science, 25(7),1448-1456.

Demuth, K., Patrolia, M., Song, J.Y., & Masapollo, M. (2012). The development of articles in children’s early Spanish: Prosodic interactions between lexical and grammatical form. Linguistic interfaces and language acquisition in childhood, J. Rotham & Pedro Guijarro-Fuentes (Eds.), First Language, 32, (1-2), 17-37.