Humans transmit meaning through various conventionalised systems: spoken and written language, natural languages, music, and gesture. Moreover, we have developed machines to augment and even produce and recognise information conveyed by these systems: mobile phones, voice mail, SMS, avatars, speech recognition systems, voiceprint technology, auditory monitoring, and so on.

Significant advances in a number of the outstanding research issues in these areas will depend upon harnessing the expertise from multiple approaches, methods, and paradigms. Advances will also, we believe, come from the spaces between these approaches, and the emergent methods and even disciplines that will come about as a product of their juxtaposition.

The scholarship, science and technology involved in these systems encompass a wide range of approaches, methods and paradigms. Researchers working in these areas originate from a wide range of areas: linguistics, experimental psychology, cognitive science, psycholinguistics, electrical engineering, robotics and mechatronics, computer science, speech and language science, speech and language technology, information retrieval, auditory physiology, experimental psychology, developmental psychology, music and music technology, acoustics, natural language processing, physics, and digital and creative arts.

This network includes members from all these areas, and also personnel in significant positions in peak bodies in speech (the Australian Speech Science and Technology Association), language technology (the Australasian Language Technology Association) music research (the Australian Music and Psychology Society), linguistics (the Australian Linguistic Society), and experimental psychology (the Australasian Experimental Psychology Society) amongst others.