title: Accent-independent adaptation to foreign accented speech.
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.
authors: Department of Communicative Sciences and Disorders, Michigan State University, Oyer Center B-7, East Lansing, Michigan 48824, USA. mbaese@msu.edu
authors: Melissa M
authors: MM
authors: Baese-Berk
authors: Ann R
authors: AR
authors: Bradlow
authors: Beverly A
authors: BA
authors: Wright
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001302:Audiometry, Speech; D032882:Comprehension; D005793:Generalization, Psychological; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D010700:Phonetics; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D013065:Speech Intelligibility; D013067:Speech Perception; D014833:Voice Quality; D055815:Young Adult