The effects of talker familiarity on spoken word identification in younger and older listeners.

The present study was designed to examine age differences in the ability to use voice information acquired intentionally (Experiment 1) or incidentally (Experiment 2) as an aid to spoken word identification. Following both implicit and explicit voice learning, participants were asked to identify novel words spoken either by familiar talkers (ones they had been exposed to in the training phase) or by 4 unfamiliar voices. In both experiments, explicit memory for talkers' voices was significantly lower in older than in young listeners. Despite this age-related decline in voice recognition, however, older adults exhibited equivalent, and in some cases greater, benefit than young listeners from having words spoken by familiar talkers. Implications of the findings for age-related changes in explicit versus implicit memory systems are discussed.

[1]  Stimulus variability and spoken word recognition. II. The effects of age and hearing impairment , 1996 .

[2]  G. Logan.  Toward an instance theory of automatization. , 1988 .

[3]  D. Howard.  Implicit and Explicit Assessment of Cognitive Aging , 1988 .

[4]  S. Goldinger.  Echoes of echoes? An episodic theory of lexical access. , 1998, Psychological review.

[5]  P. F. Adams,et al.  Current estimates from the National Health Interview Survey, 1994. , 1995, Vital and health statistics. Series 10, Data from the National Health Survey.

[6]  L L Light,et al.  Implicit and explicit memory in young and older adults. , 1987, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[7]  Gurindar S. Sohi,et al.  Memory systems , 1996, CSUR.

[8]  A M Liberman,et al.  Perception of the speech code. , 1967, Psychological review.

[9]  D. Schacter,et al.  Perceptual specificity of auditory priming: implicit memory for voice intonation and fundamental frequency. , 1994, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[10]  C. Brainerd,et al.  Cognitive development in adulthood : progress in cognitive development research , 1988 .

[11]  James F. Willott,et al.  Aging and the Auditory System: Anatomy, Physiology, and Psychophysics , 1991 .

[12]  J. M. Puckett,et al.  Adult age differences in memory for sex of voice. , 1981, Journal of gerontology.

[13]  M Moscovitch,et al.  Memory as assessed by recognition and reading time in normal and memory-impaired people with Alzheimer's disease and other neurological disorders. , 1986, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[14]  S. Goldinger,et al.  Episodic encoding of voice attributes and recognition memory for spoken words. , 1993, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[15]  A. Fry,et al.  Aging and memory for new associations: direct versus indirect measures. , 1991, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[16]  H. Nusbaum,et al.  The development of speech perception : the transition from speech sounds to spoken words , 1997 .

[17]  G. E. Peterson,et al.  Control Methods Used in a Study of the Vowels , 1951 .

[18]  S. Hashtroudi,et al.  Effects of aging on priming and skill learning. , 1991, Psychology and aging.

[19]  N. Raz,et al.  Differential effects of aging on memory for content and context: a meta-analysis. , 1995, Psychology and aging.

[20]  Daniel L. Schacter,et al.  Implicit Memory in Amnesic Patients: Impairment of Voice-Specific Priming , 1995 .

[21]  Susan Jerger,et al.  Developmental trends in the interaction between auditory and linguistic processing , 1993, Perception & psychophysics.

[22]  Keith Johnson,et al.  The role of perceived speaker identity in F0 normalization of vowels. , 1990, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[23]  Auditory priming: implicit and explicit memory for words and voices. , 1992 .

[24]  Robert C. Bilger,et al.  Standardization of a Test of Speech Perception in Noise , 1984 .

[25]  David B. Pisoni,et al.  Long-term memory in speech perception: Some new findings on talker variability, speaking rate and perceptual learning , 1993, Speech Commun..

[26]  D L Schacter,et al.  Auditory priming in elderly adults: impairment of voice-specific implicit memory. , 1994, Memory.

[27]  M. Sommers.  Perceptual specificity and implicit auditory priming in older and younger adults. , 1999, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[28]  J. M. Puckett,et al.  Adult age differences in memory for modality attributes. , 1981, Experimental aging research.

[29]  D. Pisoni,et al.  Talker-specific learning in speech perception , 1998, Perception & psychophysics.

[30]  R A Bentler,et al.  Longitudinal study of hearing aid effectiveness. I: Objective measures. , 1993, Journal of speech and hearing research.

[31]  D. Pisoni,et al.  Speech Perception as a Talker-Contingent Process , 1993, Psychological science.

[32]  A. Parving,et al.  In-the-canal hearing aids. Their use by and benefit for the younger and elderly hearing-impaired. , 1990, Scandinavian audiology.

[33]  S. Goldinger.  Words and voices: episodic traces in spoken word identification and recognition memory. , 1996, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[34]  E. Gibson.  Principles of Perceptual Learning and Development , 1969 .

[35]  D B Pisoni,et al.  Stimulus variability and spoken word recognition. I. Effects of variability in speaking rate and overall amplitude. , 1994, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[36]  L L Light,et al.  Direct and indirect measures of memory for modality in young and older adults. , 1992, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[37]  F. Craik,et al.  Memory for context and its use in item memory: comparisons of younger and older persons. , 1995, Psychology and aging.

[38]  S. M. Sheffert,et al.  Voice-specificity effects on auditory word priming , 1998, Memory & cognition.

[39]  Peter D. Eimas,et al.  Perspectives on the study of speech , 1981 .

[40]  P. Ladefoged.  WHAT ARE LINGUISTIC SOUNDS MADE OF , 1980 .

[41]  T. M. Nearey.  Static, dynamic, and relational properties in vowel perception. , 1989, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[42]  E. Tulving,et al.  Memory Systems 1994 , 1994 .

[43]  D. Park,et al.  Older adults' memory for the color of pictures and words. , 1985, Journal of gerontology.