Johnson Elizabeth K, Bruggeman Laurence, Cutler Anne
Department of Psychology, University of Toronto.
Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University.
Cogn Sci. 2018 Mar;42(2):633-645. doi: 10.1111/cogs.12520. Epub 2017 Jul 26.
Talkers are recognized more accurately if they are speaking the listeners' native language rather than an unfamiliar language. This "language familiarity effect" has been shown not to depend upon comprehension and must instead involve language sound patterns. We further examine the level of sound-pattern processing involved, by comparing talker recognition in foreign languages versus two varieties of English, by (a) English speakers of one variety, (b) English speakers of the other variety, and (c) non-native listeners (more familiar with one of the varieties). All listener groups performed better with native than foreign speech, but no effect of language variety appeared: Native listeners discriminated talkers equally well in each, with the native variety never outdoing the other variety, and non-native listeners discriminated talkers equally poorly in each, irrespective of the variety's familiarity. The results suggest that this talker recognition effect rests not on simple familiarity, but on an abstract level of phonological processing.
如果说话者说的是听众的母语而不是一门不熟悉的语言，那么对说话者的识别会更准确。这种“语言熟悉度效应”已被证明不依赖于理解，而是必须涉及语言的语音模式。我们通过比较外语与两种英语变体中的说话者识别情况，进一步研究所涉及的语音模式处理水平，参与比较的有：(a) 一种英语变体的英语使用者，(b) 另一种英语变体的英语使用者，以及 (c) 非母语听众（更熟悉其中一种变体）。所有听众群体对母语语音的识别表现都比对外语语音更好，但未出现语言变体的影响：母语听众在每种语言中对说话者的辨别能力相同，母语变体并不比另一种变体更具优势；非母语听众在每种语言中对说话者的辨别能力都同样差，无论该变体是否熟悉。结果表明，这种说话者识别效应并非基于简单的熟悉度，而是基于语音处理的抽象层面。
