title: The impact of musical training and tone language experience on talker identification.
abstract: Listeners can use pitch changes in speech to identify talkers. Individuals exhibit large variability in sensitivity to pitch and in accuracy perceiving talker identity. In particular, people who have musical training or long-term tone language use are found to have enhanced pitch perception. In the present study, the influence of pitch experience on talker identification was investigated as listeners identified talkers in native language as well as non-native languages. Experiment 1 was designed to explore the influence of pitch experience on talker identification in two groups of individuals with potential advantages for pitch processing: musicians and tone language speakers. Experiment 2 further investigated individual differences in pitch processing and the contribution to talker identification by testing a mediation model. Cumulatively, the results suggested that (a) musical training confers an advantage for talker identification, supporting a shared resources hypothesis regarding music and language and (b) linguistic use of lexical tones also increases accuracy in hearing talker identity. Importantly, these two types of hearing experience enhance talker identification by sharpening pitch perception skills in a domain-general manner.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Connecticut, 406 Babbidge Road, Unit 1020, Storrs, Connecticut 06269.
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.affiliation: Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, University of Connecticut, 850 Bolton Road, Unit 1085, Storrs, Connecticut 06269.
authors.forename: Emily
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Myers
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D044466:Asian People / Q000523:psychology; D004493:Education; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D008960:Models, Psychological; D019303:Multilingualism; D009146:Music / Q000523:psychology; D046709:Pattern Recognition, Physiological / Q000502:physiology*; D010898:Pitch Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014833:Voice Quality; D055815:Young Adult