The role of language familiarity in voice identification

Four experiments examined the effects of language characteristics on voice identification. In Experiment 1, monolingual English listeners identified bilinguals’ voices much betterwhenthey spoke English than whenthey spoke German. The opposite outcome-was-found in Experiment 2, in which the listeners were monolingual in German. In Experiment 3, monolingual English listeners also showed better voice identification when bilinguals spoke a familiar language (English) than whenthey spoke an unfamiliar one (Spanish). However, English-Spanish bilinguals hearing the same voices showed a different pattern, with the English-Spanish difference being statistically eliminated. Finally, Experiment 4 demonstratedthat, for English-dominant listeners, voice recognition deteriorates systematically as the passage being spoken is made less similar to English by rearranging words, rearranging syllables, and reversing normal text. Takentogether, the four experiments confirm that language familiarity playsan important role in voice identification.

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