Manipulating listener attitudes toward accented talkers influences speech perception

Abstract

We previously demonstrated that listeners' attitudes toward talkers with foreign accents is related to listeners' ability to perceive foreign-accented speech. In this study, we sought to determine if listeners' attitudes toward talkers with foreign accents are malleable and, if so, whether changing listeners' attitudes toward talkers with foreign accents would change the strength of the relationship between listeners' attitudes and listeners' speech perception accuracy. Specifically, we hypothesized that supporting listeners’ biases regarding non-native speech would lead to better speech perception performance. To test this hypothesis, we created short vignettes that either conformed to or violated listeners’ biases regarding non-native talkers. Native English-speaking listeners rated and transcribed speech produced by native and non-native English speakers. Half of the listeners read the vignette prior to rating the speech, half received no information about the talkers; vignettes were randomly paired with talkers. Contrary to our hypothesis, there was no effect of vignette type. Listeners rated non-native listeners as more accented and less likeable when vignettes were present. Interestingly, listeners were also more accurate transcribing speech by both native and non-native talkers when the vignettes were present.