University of Manchester, School of Psychological Sciences, M139PL Manchester, United Kingdom.
Psychol Sci. 2010 Dec;21(12):1903-9. doi: 10.1177/0956797610389192. Epub 2010 Dec 6.
Humans imitate each other during social interaction. This imitative behavior streamlines social interaction and aids in learning to replicate actions. However, the effect of imitation on action comprehension is unclear. This study investigated whether vocal imitation of an unfamiliar accent improved spoken-language comprehension. Following a pretraining accent comprehension test, participants were assigned to one of six groups. The baseline group received no training, but participants in the other five groups listened to accented sentences, listened to and repeated accented sentences in their own accent, listened to and transcribed accented sentences, listened to and imitated accented sentences, or listened to and imitated accented sentences without being able to hear their own vocalizations. Posttraining measures showed that accent comprehension was most improved for participants who imitated the speaker's accent. These results show that imitation may aid in streamlining interaction by improving spoken-language comprehension under adverse listening conditions.
人类在社交互动中会互相模仿。这种模仿行为使社交互动更加流畅，并有助于学习复制动作。然而，模仿对动作理解的影响尚不清楚。本研究旨在探讨模仿不熟悉的口音是否能提高口语理解能力。在口音理解预测试后，参与者被分配到六个小组之一。基础组没有接受训练，但其他五个小组的参与者分别听带口音的句子、用自己的口音重复带口音的句子、听并转录带口音的句子、听并模仿带口音的句子、或听并模仿带口音的句子但听不到自己的声音。培训后的测试表明，模仿说话者口音的参与者的口音理解能力提高最明显。这些结果表明，模仿可以通过在不利的听力条件下提高口语理解能力来促进互动的流畅性。
