Working memory supports rapid talker and accent accommodation: An individual differences investigation

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Auditory Perception
• Psycholinguistics

Background:

• Listeners rapidly adapt to speaker variability in multitalker environments.
• This adaptation incurs processing costs, exacerbated by accent differences.
• Individual differences in cognitive abilities may influence these costs.

Purpose of the Study:

• Investigate the role of working memory capacity and attentional control in processing costs during talker switches.
• Examine how these cognitive factors affect adaptation to native (L1 American) and non-native (L2 Mandarin) accents.
• Determine predictors of trial-to-trial accommodation costs.

Main Methods:

• A dual-task experiment involving a primary listening task and a secondary non-linguistic task.
• Assessment of working memory capacity using the Word Auditory Recognition and Recall Measure.
• Measurement of attentional control via the Trail Making Test and Stroop Test.

Main Results:

• Lower working memory capacity correlated with slower responses and reduced accuracy on talker-switch trials.
• Attentional control measures did not predict talker-switching costs.
• A marginal interaction suggested better attentional control improved L2 accent recognition accuracy.

Conclusions:

• Working memory capacity is critical for rapid, trial-to-trial talker accommodation.
• Attentional control may broadly support L2 accent processing, but not rapid adaptation.
• Individual cognitive differences significantly impact auditory accommodation in complex listening situations.