Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 17, 2026

Foreign Accent and Forensic Speaker Identification in Voice Lineups: The Influence of Acoustic Features Based on Prosody
Published on: September 27, 2024
The contribution of prosody to the perception of foreign accent
Philippe Boula de Mareüil1, Bianca Vieru-Dimulescu
1LIMSI-CNRS, Orsay, France. mareuil@limsi.fr
Abstract:
The general goal of this study was to expand our understanding of what is meant by 'foreign accent'. More specifically, it deals with the role of prosody (timing and melody), which has rarely been examined. New technologies, including diphone speech synthesis (experiment 1) and speech manipulation (experiment 2), are used to study the relative importance of prosody in what is perceived as a foreign accent. The methodology we propose, based on the prosody transplantation paradigm, can be applied to different languages or language varieties. Here, it is applied to Spanish and Italian. We built up a dozen sentences which are spoken in almost the same way in both languages (e.g. ha visto la casa del presidente americano 'you/(s)he saw the American president's house'). Spanish/Italian monolinguals and bilinguals were recorded. We then studied what is perceived when the segmental specification of an utterance is combined with suprasegmental features belonging to a different language. Under these conditions, results obtained with Spanish and Italian listeners suggest that prosody is important in identifying Spanish-accented Italian and Italian-accented Spanish.
More Related Videos
05:48Memorization-Based Training and Testing Paradigm for Robust Vocal Identity Recognition in Expressive Speech Using Event-Related Potentials Analysis
Published on: August 9, 2024
09:27Using Eye Movements Recorded in the Visual World Paradigm to Explore the Online Processing of Spoken Language
Published on: October 13, 2018
Related Concept Videos
Auditory Perception
Perceiving Loudness, Pitch, and Location
Place theory, or place coding, suggests that different pitches are heard because various sound waves activate specific locations along the cochlea's basilar membrane. The brain determines the pitch of a sound by identifying...
Perception of Sound Waves
The pitch of a sound depends on the frequency and the pressure amplitude of the source. Two sounds of the same frequency...
Factors Affecting Perception
An illustrative example of a perceptual set is the scenario where an airline pilot told...
Non-Verbal Cues
Introducing Social Perception