Methodological considerations for interpreting the Language Familiarity Effect in talker processing

Levi, Susannah V.

doi:10.1002/wcs.1483

Cited by 19 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 81 publications

(242 reference statements)

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“…For example, language familiarity facilitates vocal emotion detection (Pell & Skorup, ; Scherer, Banse, & Wallbott, ), consonant and vowel perception is influenced by talker identity (Eisner & McQueen, ; Johnson, Strand, & Johnson, ), talker familiarity enhances word recognition in adverse listening conditions (Creel, Aslin, & Tanenhaus, ; Goldinger, ; Mullennix & Pisoni, ; Nygaard, Sommers, & Pisoni, ), and certain speech sounds carry more information about talker identity than others (Andics, McQueen, & van Turennout, ; Cutler, Andics, & Fang, ). Most importantly for this study, adults recognize talkers better in a familiar language than in an unfamiliar language, a phenomenon known as the language familiarity effect (Goggin, Thompson, Strube, & Simental, ; Johnson, Bruggeman, & Cutler, ; Levi, ; Orena, Theodore, & Polka, ; Perrachione, ).…”

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confidence: 86%

By 4.5 Months, Linguistic Experience Already Affects Infants’ Talker Processing Abilities

Fecher

Johnson

2019

Child Development

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Contemporary models of adult speech perception acknowledge that the processing of linguistic and nonlinguistic aspects of the speech signal are interdependent. But when in development does this interdependence first emerge? In the adult literature, one way to demonstrate this relationship has been to examine how language experience affects talker identification. Thus, in this study, 4-to 5-month-old infants (N = 96) were tested on their ability to tell apart talkers in a familiar language (English) compared to unfamiliar languages (Polish or Spanish). Infants readily distinguished between talkers in the familiar language but not in the unfamiliar languages, supporting the hypothesis that the integrated processing of linguistic and nonlinguistic information in speech is early emerging and robust.

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confidence: 86%

By 4.5 Months, Linguistic Experience Already Affects Infants’ Talker Processing Abilities

Fecher

Johnson

2019

Child Development

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“…Indeed, it has been shown that listeners can use fine-grained phonetic information, such as VOT, to identify talkers (Allen and Miller 2004). Additionally, work on talker identification has consistently shown a Language Familiarity Effect (LFE), i.e., listeners are better at identifying talkers in their native language (e.g., Fleming et al 2014;Goggin et al 1991;Perrachione et al 2011;Thompson 1987;Levi 2019). For example, Goggin et al (1991) showed that monolingual English listeners were better at identifying English voices than German ones, and German listeners exhibited the opposite pattern.…”

Section: Literature Review 21 Identifying Accents and Talkersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Nevertheless, if listeners are not able to link the neofalantes' accent with the sociolinguistic label, whether they classify neofalantes as Spanish-dominant or Galician-dominant speakers would be informative of whether neofalantes' speech production patterns have changed after the language dominance switch. Language ability, language familiarity and attunement to the phonological system have been shown to be beneficial for talker identification (Fleming et al 2014;Goggin et al 1991;Johnson et al 2018;Levi 2019;Perrachione et al 2011;Thompson 1987) and experience with a particular variety appears to enhance the accuracy of identification of that variety (Clopper andPisoni 2004, 2006). If accent categorisation ability relies on similar mechanisms to talker identification skills, it might be influenced by similar factors.…”

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confidence: 99%

Sociolinguistic Awareness in Galician Bilinguals: Evidence from an Accent Identification Task

Lourido

Evans

2021

Languages

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The inclusion of European minority languages in public spaces such as education, administration and the media has led to the emergence of a new profile of speakers, “new speakers”, who typically acquire a minority language through education, but vary in terms of their language experience and use. The present study investigated whether a distinctive variety spoken by Galician new speakers (neofalantes) has emerged in the community and whether listeners’ language background influences accent identification abilities and patterns. Galician-Spanish bilingual listeners completed an accent identification task and were asked to comment on factors influencing their decision. Results demonstrated that all listeners could identify Galician-dominant better than Spanish-dominant bilinguals but could not identify neofalantes. Neofalantes were categorised as both Spanish- and Galician-dominant, supporting the idea that neofalantes have a hybrid variety. This finding suggests that listeners have a gradient representation of language background variation, with Galician-like and Spanish-like accents functioning as anchors and the neofalantes’ accent situated somewhere in the middle. Identification accuracy was similar for all listeners but neofalantes showed heightened sensitivity to the Galician-dominant variety, suggesting that evaluation of sociophonetic features depends on the listener’s language and social background. These findings contribute to our understanding of sociolinguistic awareness in bilingual contexts.

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“…English listeners recognizing English speakers) than speakers of an unfamiliar language (e.g., English speakers [16]). Two models have been proposed to explain the language familiarity effect [17,18]: the phonetic familiarity model, which argues that listeners rely on their familiarity with the statistical distribution of phonetic features in their native language, and the linguistic processing model, which argues that listeners also incorporate higher-level information, such as word recognition and comprehension.…”

Section: Talker Recognition (By Humans)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding the Effect of Voice Quality and Accent on Talker Similarity

Das¹,

Zhao²,

Levis³

et al. 2020

Interspeech 2020

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This paper presents a methodology to study the role of nonnative accents on talker recognition by humans. The methodology combines a state-of-the-art accent-conversion system to resynthesize the voice of a speaker with a different accent of her/his own, and a protocol for perceptual listening tests to measure the relative contribution of accent and voice quality on speaker similarity. Using a corpus of nonnative and native speakers, we generated accent conversions in two different directions: non-native speakers with native accents, and native speakers with non-native accents. Then, we asked listeners to rate the similarity between 50 pairs of real or synthesized speakers. Using a linear mixed effects model, we find that (for our corpus) the effect of voice quality is five times as large as that of non-native accent, and that the effect goes away when speakers share the same (native) accent. We discuss the potential significance of this work in earwitness identification and sociophonetics.

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Methodological considerations for interpreting the Language Familiarity Effect in talker processing

Cited by 19 publications

References 81 publications

By 4.5 Months, Linguistic Experience Already Affects Infants’ Talker Processing Abilities

By 4.5 Months, Linguistic Experience Already Affects Infants’ Talker Processing Abilities

Sociolinguistic Awareness in Galician Bilinguals: Evidence from an Accent Identification Task

Understanding the Effect of Voice Quality and Accent on Talker Similarity

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