How does familiarity with a voice affect trait judgements?

Lavan, Nadine; Mileva, Mila; McGettigan, Carolyn

doi:10.1111/bjop.12454

Cited by 10 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…For voices, however, there were no differences in the way voice recordings of familiar and unfamiliar identities were rated; that is, having increased access to identity cues through familiarity did not affect variability in trait evaluations derived from the voice. We interpret this as evidence that increased variability leads to cues to identity being perceived more independently from cues to social traits for voices than faces (Lavan et al, 2020).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Trait evaluations of faces and voices: Comparing within- and between-person variability.

Lavan¹,

Mileva²,

Burton³

et al. 2021

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

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Human faces and voices are rich sources of information that can vary in many different ways. Most of the literature on face/voice perception has focussed on understanding how people look and sound different to each other (between-person variability). However, recent studies highlight the ways in which the same person can look and sound different on different occasions (within-person variability). Across three experiments, we examined how within-and between-person variability relate to one another for social trait impressions by collecting trait ratings attributed to multiple face images and voice recordings of the same people. We find that within-person variability in social trait evaluations is at least as great as between-person variability. Using different stimulus sets across experiments, trait impressions of voices are consistently more variable within people than between people-a pattern that is only evident occasionally when judging faces. Our findings highlight the importance of understanding within-person variability, showing how judgements of the same person can vary widely on different encounters and quantify how this pattern differs for voice and face perception. The work consequently has implications for theoretical models proposing that voices can be considered 'auditory faces' and imposes limitations to the 'kernel of truth' hypothesis of trait evaluations.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Trait evaluations of faces and voices: Comparing within- and between-person variability.

Lavan¹,

Mileva²,

Burton³

et al. 2021

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

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“…Interestingly, judgements of a person’s social traits (e.g. their perceived trustworthiness or dominance) are, however, not systematically affected by voice familiarity (Lavan, Mileva, & McGettigan, 2021). For speech intelligibility, studies also report that listeners are able to better understand what a familiar other is saying in challenging listening situations (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of familiarity on within‐person age judgements from voices

Lavan

2021

British J of Psychology

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Listeners can perceive a person’s age from their voice with above chance accuracy. Studies have usually established this by asking listeners to directly estimate the age of unfamiliar voices. The recordings used mostly include cross‐sectional samples of voices, including people of different ages to cover the age range of interest. Such cross‐sectional samples likely include not only cues to age in the sound of the voice but also socio‐phonetic cues, encoded in how a person speaks. How age perpcetion accuracy is affected when minimizing socio‐phonetic cues by sampling the same voice at different time points remains largely unknown. Similarly, with the voices in age perception studies being usually unfamiliar to listeners, it is unclear how familiarity with a voice affects age perception. We asked listeners who were either familiar or unfamiliar with a set of four voices to complete an age discrimination task: listeners heard two recordings of the same person’s voice, recorded 15 years apart, and were asked to indicate in which recording the person was younger. Accuracy for both familiar and unfamiliar listeners was above chance. While familiarity advantages were apparent, accuracy was not particularly high: familiar and unfamiliar listeners were correct for 68.2% and 62.7% of trials, respectively (chance = 50%). Familiarity furthermore interacted with the voices included. Overall, our findings indicate that age perception from voices is not a trivial task at all times – even when listeners are familiar with a voice. We discuss our findings in the light of how reliable voice may be as a signal for age.

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“…For example, voice identity perception is less error-prone when listeners are familiar with a voice (voice discrimination: Lavan, Scott & McGettigan, 2016;Kreitewolf, Lavan, Obleser & McGettigan, 2020; voice identity sorting: Lavan, Burston & Garrido, 2019;Lavan Burston, Merriman, Ladwa, Knight & McGettigan, 2019;Stevenage, Symons, Fletcher & Coen, 2020). Interestingly, judgements of a person's social traits (e.g., their perceived trustworthiness or dominance) are not systematically affected by voice familiarity (Lavan, Mileva & McGettigan, 2020). For speech intelligibility, studies also report that listeners are able to better understand what a familiar other is saying in challenging listening situations (e.g., speech perception in noise) compared to when listening to an unfamiliar voice (Domingo, Holmes & Johnsrude, 2019;Holmes, Domingo & Johnsrude, 2018;Holmes & Johnrude, 2019;Johnsrude, Mackey, Hakyemez, Alexander, Trang & Carlyon, 2013;Kreitewolf, Mathias & Von Kriegstein, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of familiarity on within-person age judgements from voices

Lavan¹

2020

Preprint

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Listeners can perceive a person’s age from their voice with good accuracy. Studies have usually established this by asking listeners to directly estimate the age of unfamiliar voices. The recordings used mostly include cross-sectional samples of voices, including a people of different ages to cover the age range of interest. Such cross-sectional samples likely not only include cues to age in the sound of the voice but also socio-phonetic cues, encoded in how a person speaks. How accuracy is affected when minimising socio-phonetic cues by sampling the same voice at different timepoints remains largely unknown. Similarly, with the voices in age perception studies being usually unfamiliar to listeners, it is unclear how familiarity with a voice affects age perception. We asked listeners who were either familiar or unfamiliar with a set of voices to complete an age discrimination task: Listeners heard two recordings of the same person’s voice, recorded 15 years apart, and were asked to indicate in which recording the person was younger. Accuracy for both familiar and unfamiliar listeners was above chance. While familiarity advantages were apparent, accuracy was not particularly high: Familiar and unfamiliar listeners were correct for 68.2% and 62.7% of trials respectively (chance = 50%). Familiarity furthermore interacted with the voices included. Overall, our findings indicate that age perception from voices is not a trivial task at all times – even when listeners are familiar with a voice. We discuss our findings in light of how reliable voice may be as a signal for age.

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How does familiarity with a voice affect trait judgements?

Cited by 10 publications

References 46 publications

Trait evaluations of faces and voices: Comparing within- and between-person variability.

Trait evaluations of faces and voices: Comparing within- and between-person variability.

The effect of familiarity on within‐person age judgements from voices

The role of familiarity on within-person age judgements from voices

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