Talker identification is not improved by lexical access in the absence of familiar phonology

Listeners identify talkers more accurately when they are familiar with both the sounds and words of the language being spoken. It is unknown whether lexical information alone can facilitate talker identification in the absence of familiar phonology. To dissociate the roles of familiar words and phonology, we developed English-Mandarin “hybrid” sentences, spoken in Mandarin, which can be convincingly coerced to sound like English when presented with corresponding subtitles (e.g., “wei4 gou3 chi1 kao3 li2 zhi1” becomes “we go to college”). Across two experiments, listeners learned to identify talkers in three conditions: listeners' native language (English), an unfamiliar, foreign language (Mandarin), and a foreign language paired with subtitles that primed native language lexical access (subtitled Mandarin). In Experiment 1 listeners underwent a single session of talker identity training; in Experiment 2 listeners completed three days of training. Talkers in a foreign language were identified no better when native language lexical representations were primed (subtitled Mandarin) than from foreign-language speech alone, regardless of whether they had received one or three days of talker identity training. These results suggest that the facilitatory effect of lexical access on talker identification depends on the availability of familiar phonological forms

Examining the Time Course of Indexical Specificity Effects in Spoken Word Recognition

Variability in talker identity and speaking rate, commonly referred to as indexical variation, has demonstrable effects on the speed and accuracy of spoken word recognition. The present study examines the time course of indexical specificity effects to evaluate the hypothesis that such effects occur relatively late in the perceptual processing of spoken words. In 3 long-term repetition priming experiments, the authors examined reaction times to targets that were primed by stimuli that matched or mismatched on the indexical variable of interest (either talker identity or speaking rate). Each experiment was designed to manipulate the speed with which participants processed the stimuli. The results demonstrate that indexical variability affects participants’ perception of spoken words only when processing is relatively slow and effortful

Hemispheric Differences in Indexical Specificity Effects in Spoken Word Recognition

Variability in talker identity, one type of indexical variation, has demonstrable effects on the speed and accuracy of spoken word recognition. Furthermore, neuropsychological evidence suggests that indexical and linguistic information may be represented and processed differently in the 2 cerebral hemispheres, and is consistent with findings from the visual domain. For example, in visual word recognition, changes in font affect processing differently depending on which hemisphere initially processes the input. The present study examined whether hemispheric differences exist in spoken language as well. In 4 long-term repetition-priming experiments, the authors examined responses to stimuli that were primed by stimuli that matched or mismatched in talker identity. The results demonstrate that indexical variability can affect participants’ perception of spoken words differently in the 2 hemispheres

The Effect of Talker Identity on Dialect Processing

Recent work has suggested that bilingual listeners use the visual identity of the talker to form expectations about the language the talker will use, which then facilitates lexical processing. In the current study, we extend this work to see if there are analogous effects of talker identity on dialect processing, and whether the impact of talker identity depends on the regional background of the listener. Six actresses recorded stimuli in two dialectal guises, performing Southern US accents and standardized, regionally nonspecific US accents. Participants were introduced to the actresses via video as having one particular dialect type (familiarization), and then later did an audio-visual lexical decision task (test) where some trials would be dialectally congruent and some trials would be dialectally incongruent with their earlier experience of that talker. US English listeners from both Southern and non-Southern dialect regions participated. Listeners who self-reported having (Southern) accents were impacted by talker dialect congruence, performing best with a given dialect when it matched their experience of that talker. However, other listeners were not impacted by congruency, performing better with standardized tokens regardless. This mirrors findings in bilingualism research that early bilinguals are more sensitive to talker language pairing than monolinguals or late bilinguals. We ran three additional conditions without video and/or without a familiarization stage to confirm the importance of each component to observing the effect. Generally, without familiarization, Southern US listeners performed worse with Southern vs. standardized tokens, suggesting that without strong contextual cues indicating otherwise, these listeners may expect standardized tokens in experimental settings. There is some evidence that all listeners were somewhat sensitive to talker identity even from voice alone

Un changement de voix affecte t-il le processus de reconnaissance des mots parlés?

International audienceAccording to McLennan and Luce [1], variability in talker identity affects spoken word recognition when processing is slow and effortful. In the present study, we tested this hypothesis by manipulating the neighbourhood density of target words in a repetition priming experiment. Both for words with few and many phonological neighbours, the amount of priming for repeated words was not affected by a voice change. Such observation supports the claim that abstract representations exist and underlie spoken word recognition.Dans cette étude, nous avons examiné l'impact d'un changement de voix sur le processus de reconnaissance des mots parlés

Perceptual integration of indexical information in bilingual speech

The present research examines how different types of indexical information, namely talker information and the language being spoken, are perceptually integrated in bilingual speech. Using a speeded classification paradigm (Garner, 1974), variability in characteristics of the talker (gender in Experiment 1 and specific talker in Experiment 2) and in the language being spoken (Mandarin vs. English) was manipulated. Listeners from two different language backgrounds, English monolinguals and Mandarin-English bilinguals, were asked to classify short, meaningful sentences obtained from different Mandarin-English bilingual talkers on these indexical dimensions. Results for the gender-language classification (Exp. 1) showed a significant, symmetrical interference effect for both listener groups, indicating that gender information and language are processed in an integral manner. For talker-language classification (Exp. 2), language interfered more with talker than vice versa for the English monolinguals, but symmetrical interference was found for the Mandarin-English bilinguals. These results suggest both that talker-specificity is not fully segregated from language-specificity, and that bilinguals exhibit more balanced classification along various indexical dimensions of speech. Currently, follow-up studies investigate this talker-language dependency for bilingual listeners who do not speak Mandarin in order to disentangle the role of bilingualism versus language familiarity

The Time Course of Variability Effects in the Perception of Spoken Language: Changes Across the Lifespan

Although spoken language is communicated via a rapidly varying signal, human listeners recognize spoken words both quickly and accurately. Nonetheless, variability in speech does have implications for both the processes and representations involved in spoken language perception. Moreover, variability effects have been observed across the lifespan, ranging from infants to older adults. Many factors could potentially modulate the degree to which variability affects spoken language perception. In particular, recent findings demonstrate that variability effects follow a time course, manifesting themselves at predictable points during perceptual processing. However, time course investigations are currently limited to young adults. Therefore, the current paper explores how the time course of variability effects might differ throughout the lifespan, based on predictions derived from an adaptive resonance framework