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The effects of high variability training on voice identity learning

Lavan, N; Knight, S; Hazan, V; McGettigan, C; (2019) The effects of high variability training on voice identity learning. Cognition , 193 , Article 104026. 10.1016/j.cognition.2019.104026. Green open access

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Abstract

High variability training has been shown to benefit the learning of new face identities. In three experiments, we investigated whether this is also the case for voice identity learning. In Experiment 1a, we contrasted high variability training sets – which included stimuli extracted from a number of different recording sessions, speaking environments and speaking styles – with low variability stimulus sets that only included a single speaking style (read speech) extracted from one recording session (see Ritchie & Burton, 2017 for faces). Listeners were tested on an old/new recognition task using read sentences (i.e. test materials fully overlapped with the low variability training stimuli) and we found a high variability disadvantage. In Experiment 1b, listeners were trained in a similar way, however, now there was no overlap in speaking style or recording session between training sets and test stimuli. Here, we found a high variability advantage. In Experiment 2, variability was manipulated in terms of the number of unique items as opposed to number of unique speaking styles. Here, we contrasted the high variability training sets used in Experiment 1a with low variability training sets that included the same breadth of styles, but fewer unique items; instead, individual items were repeated (see Murphy, Ipser, Gaigg, & Cook, 2015 for faces). We found only weak evidence for a high variability advantage, which could be explained by stimulus-specific effects. We propose that high variability advantages may be particularly pronounced when listeners are required to generalise from trained stimuli to different-sounding, previously unheard stimuli. We discuss these findings in the context of mechanisms thought to underpin advantages for high variability training.

Type: Article
Title: The effects of high variability training on voice identity learning
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2019.104026
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2019.104026
Language: English
Additional information: This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions.
Keywords: Voice identity, Person perception, High variability training, Voice learning
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Speech, Hearing and Phonetic Sciences
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10078177
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