Project Details
Projekt
Determinants of Voice Learning
Applicant
Dr. Romi Zäske
Subject Area
General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology
Human Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience
Human Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience
Term
from 2012 to 2016
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 69199027
Recognizing people from their voices is a routine performance in social interactions. It has been suggested that the processing of unfamiliar and familiar voices involves partially distinct cortical areas (von Kriegstein & Giraud, 2004) and differs qualitatively (Kreiman & Sidtis, 2011). However, the neural processes mediating the transition from unfamiliar to familiar voices and the conditions under which voices are learned remain largely unexplored. With respect to learning, recent neuroscientific research tends to look at short-term implicit effects of priming and adaptation. Accordingly, current models of person perception are void of learning mechanisms that are associated with explicit speaker recognition (Belin et al., 2011; Belin et al., 2004; Campanella & Belin, 2007). Thus, the applicability of these models on everyday face and voice recognition is limited.Based on the notion that the successful acquisition of voice identity representations entails recognition of learned voices independent of speech content, as part of the present project, we have conducted an EEG (ME1) and an fMRI study (ME2) to explore the neural correlates of voice recognition from the same as opposed to different utterances than heard at study. Moreover, following our initial proposal we have also started to address the question if voice learning is subject to an own-age bias (E3). We are also currently preparing two EEG studies on the role of accents (E4a-b) and attention (E5) in voice learning. Furthermore, we have built an extensive audio-visual database of 120 young and elderly speakers to serve as stimulus material for current and future projects. Overall, during the proposed one year extension of the current project, we are planning to i) finish and publish E4a-b and E5, and ii) to conduct two EEG studies (NE1 and NE2) assessing the contribution of distinctiveness to voice learning.E: Experiment from the original proposalME: Modified experiment from the original proposalNE: New experiment for the present renewal proposal
DFG Programme
Research Units
Subproject of
FOR 1097:
Person Perception
