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. 2013 Mar;133(3):EL174-80.
doi: 10.1121/1.4789864.

Accent-independent adaptation to foreign accented speech

Melissa M Baese-Berk  1 , Ann R Bradlow, Beverly A Wright
Affiliations

Accent-independent adaptation to foreign accented speech

Melissa M Baese-Berk et al. J Acoust Soc Am. 2013 Mar.

Abstract

Foreign-accented speech can be difficult to understand but listeners can adapt to novel talkers and accents with appropriate experience. Previous studies have demonstrated talker-independent but accent-dependent learning after training on multiple talkers from a single language background. Here, listeners instead were exposed to talkers from five language backgrounds during training. After training, listeners generalized their learning to novel talkers from language backgrounds both included and not included in the training set. These findings suggest that generalization of foreign-accent adaptation is the result of exposure to systematic variability in accented speech that is similar across talkers from multiple language backgrounds.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Performance (proportion of keywords correct) on the post-test for a novel talker with a novel accent (Slovakian-accented English). Participants were trained on native English talkers (“No Foreign Accent”), five Mandarin-accented talkers (“Single Foreign Accent”), or five talkers from different native language backgrounds (“Multiple Foreign Accent”). Only participants in the Multiple-Foreign-Accent training group demonstrate generalization to a novel talker from a novel accent background.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Performance (proportion of keywords correct) on the post-test for a novel talker with a familiar accent (Mandarin-accented English). Otherwise as in Fig. 1. Participants in both the Single-Foreign-Accent and Multiple-Foreign-Accent groups demonstrate generalization to a novel talker from a familiar accent background.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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