Effects of cross-language voice training on speech perception: Whose familiar voices are more intelligible?

Abstract

Previous research has shown that familiarity with a talker's voice can improve linguistic processing (herein, "Familiar Talker Advantage"), but this benefit is constrained by the context in which the talker's voice is familiar. The current study examined how familiarity affects intelligibility by manipulating the type of talker information available to listeners. One group of listeners learned to identify bilingual talkers' voices from English words, where they learned language-specific talker information. A second group of listeners learned the same talkers from German words, and thus only learned language-independent talker information. After voice training, both groups of listeners completed a word recognition task with English words produced by both familiar and unfamiliar talkers. Results revealed that English-trained listeners perceived more phonemes correct for familiar than unfamiliar talkers, while German-trained listeners did not show improved intelligibility for familiar talkers. The absence of a processing advantage in speech intelligibility for the Germantrained listeners demonstrates limitations on the Familiar Talker Advantage, which crucially depends on the language context in which the talkers' voices were learned; knowledge of how a talker produces linguistically relevant contrasts in a particular language is necessary to increase speech intelligibility for words produced by familiar talkers.

Individual Differences in Learning Talker Categories: The Role of Working Memory

“…That some children are better at learning the voices of previously unfamiliar talkers is also relevant for spoken language processing in general. Numerous studies have found that familiarity with a talker’s voice improves spoken language processing in both children (Levi, 2014) and adults (Levi et al, 2011; Magnuson et al, 1995; Nygaard and Pisoni, 1998; Nygaard et al, 1994). …”

“…All sound files were normalized to have a uniform RMS amplitude. The 3 bilingual talkers used in the current study had similar intelligibility (table 1) and were selected from a larger group of bilinguals (Levi et al, 2011). Additionally, these 3 talkers were selected to have relatively different average fundamental frequency (F0) across productions.…”

“…The speech signal simultaneously carries linguistic information (what is being said) and also talker information (who is saying it). Recovering the linguistic content in the face of talker variation has been examined extensively in the speech perception literature, where it has been shown that listeners process speech in a talker-contingent manner (Allen and Miller, 2004; Eisner and McQueen, 2005; Jesse et al, 2007; Kraljic and Samuel, 2007; Ladefoged and Broadbent, 1957; Levi et al, 2011; McQueen et al, 2006; Norris et al, 2003; Nygaard et al, 1994; Theodore and Miller, 2010; Yonan and Sommers, 2000). …”

The Development of Language-Specific and Language-Independent Talker Processing

“…All sound files were normalized to have a uniform RMS amplitude. The three bilingual speakers used in the current study were highly intelligible and selected from a larger group of bilinguals (Levi, Winters, & Pisoni, 2011; see Table 1). In addition, the three speakers were selected as having relatively different average fundamental frequency across productions.…”

“…Intelligibility refers to the average number of words correctly identified across three signal-to-noise ratios and a clear listening condition (Levi et al, 2011). F0 is the average fundamental frequency at the vowel midpoint for the 360 English words.…”