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Listeners form average-based representations of individual voice identities.

ABSTRACT: Models of voice perception propose that identities are encoded relative to an abstracted average or prototype. While there is some evidence for norm-based coding when learning to discriminate different voices, little is known about how the representation of an individual's voice identity is formed through variable exposure to that voice. In two experiments, we show evidence that participants form abstracted representations of individual voice identities based on averages, despite having never been exposed to these averages during learning. We created 3 perceptually distinct voice identities, fully controlling their within-person variability. Listeners first learned to recognise these identities based on ring-shaped distributions located around the perimeter of within-person voice spaces - crucially, these distributions were missing their centres. At test, listeners' accuracy for old/new judgements was higher for stimuli located on an untrained distribution nested around the centre of each ring-shaped distribution compared to stimuli on the trained ring-shaped distribution.

SUBMITTER: Lavan N

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6546765 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Listeners form average-based representations of individual voice identities.

Lavan Nadine N Knight Sarah S McGettigan Carolyn C

Nature communications 20190603 1

Models of voice perception propose that identities are encoded relative to an abstracted average or prototype. While there is some evidence for norm-based coding when learning to discriminate different voices, little is known about how the representation of an individual's voice identity is formed through variable exposure to that voice. In two experiments, we show evidence that participants form abstracted representations of individual voice identities based on averages, despite having never be ...[more]

PMID: 31160558

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Listeners form average-based representations of individual voice identities.

Publications

Listeners form average-based representations of individual voice identities.

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