Talker variability in spoken word recognition: Evidence from repetition priming

Abstract

The effect of talker variability on the processing of spoken words is investigated using short-term repetition priming experiments. Prime-target pairs, either repeated (e.g., queen-queen) or unrelated (e.g., bell-queen), were produced by the same or different male speakers. Two interstimulus intervals (ISI, 50 and 250 ms) were used to explore the time course of repetition priming and voice specificity effects. The auditory stimuli were presented to 40 listeners, who completed a lexical decision task followed by a talker voice discrimination task. Results from the lexical decision task showed that the magnitude of priming was attenuated in the different-talker condition, indicating a talker variability effect on spoken word recognition. In contrast, the talker variability effect on priming did not differ between the two ISIs. Talker voice discrimination was faster and more accurate for nonword targets, but not for word targets, indicating a lexical status effect on voice discrimination. Taken together, these results suggest that talker variability affects recognition of spoken words, and that the effect cannot be simply attributed to non-lexical voice discrimination.