The Brain: How do we learn accents?
Wednesday 4th June 2025, 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM (London Time)
Did you know that babies learn accents before they are even born? Did you know that there is a neurological condition where people wake up one morning and start speaking with a different accent than they did when they went to bed? Did you know that people with a foreign accent are perceived as less competent and less trustworthy than those without an accent? Can one’s accent be influenced by pollution? Why is it so difficult for late learners of a second language to acquire a native-like accent? Can voice coaches for actors help speech therapists develop exercises for people with communication problems?
In her talk on the neuroscience of accents, Dr Miha Constantinescu (Department of Psychology, University of East London) will address some of these questions.
Miha Constantinescu is a Senior Lecturer in Cognitive and Developmental Psychology. Before joining UEL in 2018, she earned an MPhil and a PhD in Developmental Psychology from the University of Cambridge. Miha has published research in the following areas: cognitive development and spatial abilities; sex differences in infancy and childhood; hormones and behaviour.
More recently, Miha has embarked on a research project on bilingualism and foreign accentedness, which seeks to investigate and understand the complex and subtle ways in which existing biases and stereotypes concerning foreignness can impact an individual’s perceived competence and trustworthiness.
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Dr Miha Constantinescu
Miha Constantinescu is a Senior Lecturer in Cognitive and Developmental Psychology. Before joining UEL in 2018, she earned an MPhil and a PhD in Developmental Psychology from the University of Cambridge. Miha has published research in the following areas: cognitive development and spatial abilities; sex differences in infancy and childhood; hormones and behaviour.
Attend this course for as little as £22 as part of the Voice Professional Training CPD Award Scheme.
Learn MoreSorry, this is an archived short course...
We have plenty of upcoming short courses coming soon. See details of some of them below or look at the full list of short courses.
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This six-week course is an opportunity to learn about both Received Pronunciation and Standard Southern British English. Rather than a course in learning how to speak RP/SSBE (there are many brilliant available courses for this already), this course is about learning how to coach it.
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Stanislavski said, “our artistic emotions are, at first, as shy as wild animals and they hide in the depths of our souls.” Michael Chekhov said, our bodies should be like a “sensitive membrane, a kind of receiver and conveyor of the subtlest images, feelings, emotions and will impulses.” And Meisner said we should be “living truthfully under imaginary circumstances.” Join Louisa Morgan in this 2-part course as she explores a range of well-known acting practitioners to investigate what they believed (or believe) about emotion and how they approached it in their work. She'll compare their work to see where they align and where they diverge.
Tuesday 17th March 2026
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Shaped by the popular music of its time, musical theatre blends storytelling with an ever-evolving range of vocal styles—from classical legit singing to jazz, hip-hop, and powerhouse belting. Despite its importance, much of what we understand about vibrato comes from laboratory-based studies that strip singing of its musical, stylistic, and performance context. Join Dr Alyssa Becker as she connects current research with real-world pedagogy, revealing how elite musical theatre performers strategically use vibrato to shape style and storytelling, and showing how these insights can be applied in the voice studio to train stylistic flexibility and control!