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Updated: Apr 12, 2026
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Foreign Accent and Forensic Speaker Identification in Voice Lineups: The Influence of Acoustic Features Based on Prosody
Published on: September 27, 2024
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Perceived foreign accentedness: acoustic distances and lexical properties
Vincent Porretta1,2, Aki-Juhani Kyröläinen3, Benjamin V Tucker4
1University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. porretta@ualberta.ca.
Attention, Perception & Psychophysics
|May 20, 2015
Summary
This study reveals that both the acoustic properties of speech and word-specific features influence how foreign accentedness is perceived. Understanding these factors improves models of speech perception.
Area of Science:
- Linguistics
- Phonetics
- Speech Perception
Background:
- Perceived foreign accentedness is influenced by various linguistic factors.
- Previous research often focused on either acoustic or lexical variables independently.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the simultaneous effects of speaker-dependent (acoustic) and speaker-independent (lexical) variables on perceived foreign accentedness.
- To analyze accentedness ratings of Chinese-accented English words.
Main Methods:
- Analyzed accentedness ratings of Chinese-accented English words.
- Quantified speaker-dependent variables as acoustic distances from native-speaker norms.
- Measured speaker-independent variables based on intrinsic word properties.
Main Results:
- Perceived foreign accentedness is influenced by both acoustic characteristics and lexical properties of words.
- A model incorporating both variable types explained perception variability.
Conclusions:
- Both acoustic and lexical factors are crucial for understanding foreign accentedness perception.
- Future research should consider the interplay between acoustic variability and multidimensional representations.
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