Talker-specificity effects in spoken language processing: Now you see them, now you don’t

Abstract

A fundamental goal of research in the domain of speech perception has been to describe how listeners resolve the lack-of-invariance problem in order to achieve stable word recognition. Here we review work from our laboratory and others that has examined the representational nature of prelexical and lexical knowledge by considering the degree to which listeners customize the mapping from the acoustic signal to meaning on a talker-specific basis. One central finding is that while talker-specificity effects in speech perception are observed frequently, they are not absolute, and seem to be influenced by rich interactions within the cognitive and language architectures. We consider these findings with respect to their implications for abstract and episodic accounts of spoken word recognition.

The Role of Talker Familiarity in Auditory Distraction

“…In summary, our study replicated the robust data already supporting the ISE but failed to show a talker-specific effect of familiarity in the context of ISE. These data suggest that talker familiarity is a more fragile construct than the speech perception literature originally suggested (Drouin et al, 2017), while also supporting the interference-by-process view of the changing-state effect (Hughes, 2014). Further research is needed to help resolve when talker-specific information is perceived and utilized by the listener.…”

“…These data also remind us that talker familiarity is a more vulnerable construct than once thought (Drouin, Monto, & Theodore, 2017). Some researchers argue that it is the role of attention that seems to modulate said talker familiarity effects across a variety of speech perception paradigms.…”