Abstract
The effect of speaker variability on accessing the form and meaning of spoken words was evaluated in two short-term priming experiments. In the repetition priming experiment, participants listened to repeated or unrelated prime-target pairs, in which the prime and target were produced by the same speaker or different speakers. The results showed robust repetition priming, but only partial evidence of reduction of priming by speaker variability. In the semantic/associative priming experiment, participants listened to semantically/associatively related or unrelated prime-target pairs, in which the prime and target were produced by the same speaker or different speakers. The results showed robust semantic/associative priming, but the reduction of priming by speaker variability took place only for targets produced by the female speaker. There is no evidence that the speaker variability effect varied as a function of inter-stimulus interval. These findings suggest that speaker variability could affect access to word form and meaning, but the impact is relatively weak.
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We thank Danny R. Moates for assistance in recruiting participants, Lauren Baer and Eleni Gkikas for assistance in administering the experiments, and Juliana Gursky for editorial assistance. We also thank James Magnuson, Michael Vitevitch, and Paola Dussias for commenting on an earlier version of the manuscript.
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Lee, CY., Zhang, Y. Processing Speaker Variability in Repetition and Semantic/Associative Priming. J Psycholinguist Res 44, 237–250 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-014-9307-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-014-9307-5