Effects of talker sex on phonetic convergence in shadowed speech

Abstract

Many studies have reported phonetic convergence during speech shadowing and conversational interaction, with highly variable results. Some of this variability is likely due to effects of talker sex on phonetic convergence. For example, some studies only use a single male model, with both male and female shadowers, while others focus on only male or female talkers. To date, few studies have provided a rigorous investigation of variability across male and female talkers in phonetic convergence. Of these, some studies have found that women converged more than men, while others report the opposite pattern. The current study examined phonetic convergence in a speech shadowing task with 48 talkers (24 female) who shadowed same sex or opposite sex models. The results were analyzed to reveal effects of talker sex and item type (mono- versus bisyllabic words) on measures of phonetic convergence. Because phonetic convergence varies according to the sex of the talker and the model, future studies should employ talker sets that are balanced with respect to talker sex.