The Other Accent Effect in Talker Recognition: Now You See It, Now You Don't

The existence of the Language Familiarity Effect (LFE), where talkers a familiar language are easier to identify than an unfamiliar language, is well-documented and uncontroversial. However, closely related phenomenon known as Other Accent (OAE), accented more difficult recognize, less well understood. There several possible explanations for why OAE exists, but date, little data exist adjudicate differences between them. Here, we begin address this issue by directly comparing listeners’ recognition who speak in different types accents, examining both LFE same set listeners. Specifically, Canadian English listeners were tested on their ability recognize within four voice line-ups: talkers, Australian Mandarin-accented Mandarin talkers. We predicted that would be present not English—which precisely what observed. also observed disconnect confidence performance across accents; is, performed equally poorly with they confident latter group findings stage further investigation into nature exploring range potential effect, introducing important implications forensic scientists’ evaluation ear witness testimony.