Famous talker effects in spoken word recognition

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Auditory Perception
• Speech Processing

Background:

• Previous research indicates talker-specific voice information impacts spoken word recognition late in processing.
• Studies typically involve unfamiliar talkers, potentially limiting the scope of these findings.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if listener familiarity with talkers influences the timing of talker-specific effects in spoken word recognition.
• To determine if using famous talkers alters the processing of voice information compared to unfamiliar talkers.

Main Methods:

• Employed a long-term repetition-priming paradigm.
• Utilized a speeded-shadowing task with famous (Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton) and nonfamous talkers.
• Measured reaction times (RTs) to repeated and unprimed spoken words.

Main Results:

• In Experiment 1 (famous talkers), shorter RTs for repeated words occurred only when spoken by the same talker.
• In Experiment 2 (nonfamous talkers), shorter RTs for repeated words were observed regardless of whether the talker was the same or different.
• These findings suggest a modulation of processing based on talker familiarity.

Conclusions:

• Talker-specific voice details can influence spoken word perception earlier when listeners are familiar with the talker.
• Listener familiarity with famous talkers appears to accelerate the integration of voice-specific information during speech processing.