Examining talker effects in the perception of native- and foreign-accented speech

Understanding the circumstances under which talker (and other types of) variability affects language perception represents an important area of research in the field of spoken word recognition. Previous work has demonstrated that talker effects are more likely when processing is relatively slow (McLennan & Luce, 2005). Given that listeners may take longer to process foreign-accented speech than native-accented speech (Munro & Derwing, Language and Speech, 38, 289-306 1995), talker effects should be more likely when listeners are presented with words spoken in a foreign accent than when they are presented with those same words spoken in a native accent. The results of two experiments, conducted in two different countries and in two different languages, are consistent with this prediction.