Implicit and explicit phonetic imitations in single-word shadowing.

Abstract

Talkers spontaneously accommodate to a model talker in single word shadowing tasks. This behavior has been termed implicit phonetic imitation, as talkers have no awareness of having modified their speech. In this study, we compare implicit phonetic imitation to explicit phonetic imitation across two groups of participants. All participants completed an auditory naming task, which included 50 monosyllabic words with the vowels /i ae a o u/ produced by a male model talker. With the exception of task instructions, the procedure was identical for both groups; one group, however, was given the instruction to explicitly imitate the model talker, while the other group was simply instructed to repeat the words naturally. We compare imitation across the two groups both acoustically by measuring vowel spectra and final stop patterns and auditorily by having listeners judge perceptual similarity. The results indicate (1) explicit and implicit imitation target different aspects of vowels; (2) the release of final stops are imitated in both conditions, but to a greater extent in the explicit condition; and (3) listeners perceive imitation in both conditions, but, again, to a greater extent in the explicit condition.