Can Listeners Hear Who Is Singing? The Role of Familiarity.
OBJECTIVE
This study sought to determine whether familiarity with voices increases discrimination of voices across pitch intervals.


METHODS
This is a between-group design.


METHODS
This study used a forced-choice paradigm where listeners heard two different singers (singer 1 and singer 2) producing /ɑ/ at the identical pitch and an unknown singer (either singer 1 or singer 2) producing /ɑ/ at a different pitch. Listeners had to identify which singer was the unknown singer. Two baritones and two tenors were recorded producing /ɑ/ at the pitches C3, E3, G3, B3, D4, and F4. Two sopranos and two mezzo-sopranos were recorded producing /ɑ/ at the pitches C4, E4, G4, B4, D5, and F5. For each group of stimuli, male and female, all possible pairs of singers were constructed for the lowest pitch (C2 or C3, respectively) and for the highest pitch (F4 or F5, respectively). The unknown singer was varied across the remaining pitches. Participants in group 1 completed a training session where they were familiarized with the voices being tested. Participants in group 2 did not.


RESULTS
Training did not significantly improve the ability to discriminate voices when the voices being compared were of the same voice category. However, training did significantly improve the ability to discriminate voices when the voices being compared were of different voice categories even when training lasted as little as 5 minutes.


CONCLUSIONS
Small amount of exposure to human voices results in voice category formation but does not result in the formation of models of individual voices.
Department of Audiology and Speech Pathology, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Knoxville, Tennessee. Electronic address: merickso@uthsc.edu.
Molly L
ML
Erickson
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D010897:Pitch Discrimination; D011571:Psychoacoustics; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D063346:Singing; D014833:Voice Quality; D055815:Young Adult
Familiarity; Perception; Pitch; Timbre; Training; Voice classification