Do faces speak volumes? Social expectations in speech comprehension and evaluation across three age groups.

An unresolved issue in social perception concerns the effect of perceived ethnicity on speech processing. Bias-based accounts assume conscious misunderstanding of native speech in the case of a speaker classification as nonnative, resulting in negative ratings and poorer comprehension. In contrast,...

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Autor principal: Adriana Hanulíková
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Lenguaje:EN
Publicado: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2021
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Acceso en línea:https://doaj.org/article/51ec586830b04f9c9f920e4cc00ea9fb
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spelling oai:doaj.org-article:51ec586830b04f9c9f920e4cc00ea9fb2021-12-02T20:13:23ZDo faces speak volumes? Social expectations in speech comprehension and evaluation across three age groups.1932-620310.1371/journal.pone.0259230https://doaj.org/article/51ec586830b04f9c9f920e4cc00ea9fb2021-01-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0259230https://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203An unresolved issue in social perception concerns the effect of perceived ethnicity on speech processing. Bias-based accounts assume conscious misunderstanding of native speech in the case of a speaker classification as nonnative, resulting in negative ratings and poorer comprehension. In contrast, exemplar models of socially indexed speech perception suggest that such negative effects arise only when a contextual cue to the social identity is misleading, i.e. when ethnicity and speech clash with listeners' expectations. To address these accounts, and to assess ethnicity effects across different age groups, three non-university populations (N = 172) were primed with photographs of Asian and white European women and asked to repeat and rate utterances spoken in three accents (Korean-accented German, a regional German accent, standard German), all embedded in background noise. In line with exemplar models, repetition accuracy increased when the expected and perceived speech matched, but the effect was limited to the foreign accent, and-at the group level-to teens and older adults. In contrast, Asian speakers received the most negative accent ratings across all accents, consistent with a bias-based view, but group distinctions again came into play here, with the effect most pronounced in older adults, and limited to standard German for teens. Importantly, the effects varied across ages, with younger adults showing no effects of ethnicity in either task. The findings suggest that theoretical contradictions are a consequence of methodological choices, which reflect distinct aspects of social information processing.Adriana HanulíkováPublic Library of Science (PLoS)articleMedicineRScienceQENPLoS ONE, Vol 16, Iss 10, p e0259230 (2021)
institution DOAJ
collection DOAJ
language EN
topic Medicine
R
Science
Q
spellingShingle Medicine
R
Science
Q
Adriana Hanulíková
Do faces speak volumes? Social expectations in speech comprehension and evaluation across three age groups.
description An unresolved issue in social perception concerns the effect of perceived ethnicity on speech processing. Bias-based accounts assume conscious misunderstanding of native speech in the case of a speaker classification as nonnative, resulting in negative ratings and poorer comprehension. In contrast, exemplar models of socially indexed speech perception suggest that such negative effects arise only when a contextual cue to the social identity is misleading, i.e. when ethnicity and speech clash with listeners' expectations. To address these accounts, and to assess ethnicity effects across different age groups, three non-university populations (N = 172) were primed with photographs of Asian and white European women and asked to repeat and rate utterances spoken in three accents (Korean-accented German, a regional German accent, standard German), all embedded in background noise. In line with exemplar models, repetition accuracy increased when the expected and perceived speech matched, but the effect was limited to the foreign accent, and-at the group level-to teens and older adults. In contrast, Asian speakers received the most negative accent ratings across all accents, consistent with a bias-based view, but group distinctions again came into play here, with the effect most pronounced in older adults, and limited to standard German for teens. Importantly, the effects varied across ages, with younger adults showing no effects of ethnicity in either task. The findings suggest that theoretical contradictions are a consequence of methodological choices, which reflect distinct aspects of social information processing.
format article
author Adriana Hanulíková
author_facet Adriana Hanulíková
author_sort Adriana Hanulíková
title Do faces speak volumes? Social expectations in speech comprehension and evaluation across three age groups.
title_short Do faces speak volumes? Social expectations in speech comprehension and evaluation across three age groups.
title_full Do faces speak volumes? Social expectations in speech comprehension and evaluation across three age groups.
title_fullStr Do faces speak volumes? Social expectations in speech comprehension and evaluation across three age groups.
title_full_unstemmed Do faces speak volumes? Social expectations in speech comprehension and evaluation across three age groups.
title_sort do faces speak volumes? social expectations in speech comprehension and evaluation across three age groups.
publisher Public Library of Science (PLoS)
publishDate 2021
url https://doaj.org/article/51ec586830b04f9c9f920e4cc00ea9fb
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