Common-sense beliefs, recognition and the identification of familiar and unfamiliar speakers from verbal and non-linguistic vocalizations

Abstract

Listeners first listened to tape-recorded speech samples of words and non-linguistic vocalizations to decide whether each came from a familiar or an unfamiliar speaker. If a vocalization was judged as being uttered by a familiar speaker, listeners were asked to identify, if possible, the individual by name. Listeners were instructed not to guess. Confidence-accuracy scores in judgements and identification also were assessed. A separate group of participants attempted to predict the accuracy of performance of the listeners for each of the utterances made by the familiar and unfamiliar speakers. Tokens of some utterances, namely the words hello and help me and the sounds of laughter and clearing the throat, allowed equally good performance on the familiar/unfamiliar decision whether their source was a familiar or an unfamiliar speaker. For other vocalizations (moan, cough, grunt and sigh) listeners were better at detecting unfamiliar speakers than at recognizing familiar speakers. Those utterances judged to be made by familiar speakers led to correct identifications approximately 50 percent of the time on hearing the words hello and help me, and laughter. All other utterances led to less than 30 percent correct speaker identifications. For those unfamiliar speakers who were falsely recognized as familiar, listeners falsely identified by name between 22 and 30 percent of the vocalizations. Few of the confidence-accuracy relationships were significant. Laypersons’ common-sense beliefs for speaker identification were generally unrealistic.