The episodic encoding of talker voice attributes across diverse voices

Abstract

In this study, we replicated and extended Experiment 1 of Palmeri et al. (1993) in two experiments. Using the continuous recognition memory paradigm, we investigated effects of a demographically heterogeneous set of talkers varying across race, gender, and regional accent (Exp. 1) and effects of two demographically homogeneous sets of talkers (8 identifiably white male or 8 identifiably Black male talkers) across two listener populations (white and Black listeners) (Exp. 2). Words repeated in the same voice were recognized more quickly and accurately than words repeated in a different voice in both experiments, as found in the original study. This pattern is extremely robust. However, we also found differences across talker conditions, number of voices, lag, false alarms, and d’ that differ from the original study (Exp. 1). In addition, we found effects of talker, talker context, and listener population suggesting that social ideologies and experiences greatly influence the encoding of and memory for spoken words (Exp. 2).