The Specificity of Adaptation to Real-Time Formant Shifting

In this study, two experiments were conducted to investigate the specificity of adaptation to real-time formant shifting. During the experiments, talkers were adapted to altered auditory feedback for one vowel (trained vowel) and received unaltered feedback for a different vowel (untrained vowel). In the first experiment, production of the untrained vowel was measured while the talker was in the process of adapting to the altered feedback for the trained vowel. In the second experiment, production of the untrained vowel was measured after talkers had adapted to the altered feedback for the trained vowel. In both experiments, talkers spontaneously modified production of the trained vowel in response to the altered auditory feedback. In the first experiment, talkers slightly altered production of the untrained vowel while the trained vowel was adapting to the altered feedback. In the second experiment, production of the untrained vowel was not altered after talkers had completely adapted to the altered feedback of the trained vowel. These results suggest that the degree of generalization depends on the conditions of adaptation and on the information available about the acoustic environment.