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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Oct 9, 2025

Foreign Accent and Forensic Speaker Identification in Voice Lineups: The Influence of Acoustic Features Based on Prosody
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Is There a Foreign Accent Effect on Moral Judgment?

Alice Foucart1, Susanne Brouwer2

  • 1Centro de Investigación Nebrija en Cognición (CINC), Facultad de Lenguas y Educación, Universidad Nebrija, 28015 Madrid, Spain.

Brain Sciences
|December 24, 2021
PubMed
Summary

Moral judgments shift towards utilitarianism when people hear dilemmas spoken in a foreign accent. This foreign accent effect, similar to the foreign language effect, influences decision-making by altering cognitive processes.

Keywords:
cognitive disfluencyemotion processingforeign accentforeign language effectpsychological distance

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Area of Science:

  • Psycholinguistics
  • Moral Psychology
  • Cognitive Science

Background:

  • Foreign language use promotes utilitarian moral decision-making.
  • Explanations include reduced emotionality, increased cognitive load, and psychological distance.
  • Foreign-accented speech may evoke similar psychological effects.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate if a foreign accent, independent of language, influences moral judgments.
  • To determine if foreign-accented speech elicits more utilitarian decisions compared to native-accented speech.

Main Methods:

  • 435 participants (Spanish and Dutch native speakers) evaluated moral dilemmas (trolley, footbridge).
  • Dilemmas were presented online in native or foreign-accented speech (Spanish, Dutch).
  • Accents included native, British English, Cameroonian (Spanish), and Turkish, French (Dutch).

Main Results:

  • Utilitarian decisions increased with Cameroonian-accented Spanish and French-accented Dutch.
  • A general foreign accent effect was observed, increasing utilitarian choices compared to native accents.
  • Variability in the effect across different foreign accents was noted.

Conclusions:

  • A foreign accent, akin to a foreign language, can modulate cognitive mechanisms influencing moral judgments.
  • This 'foreign accent effect' impacts behavior, suggesting reduced emotionality, increased cognitive load, or psychological distance.
  • Further research is needed to explore accent-specific variations and underlying mechanisms.