Revisiting the left ear advantage for phonetic cues to talker identification

Abstract

Previous research suggests that learning to use a phonetic property [e.g., voice-onset-time, (VOT)] for talker identity supports a left ear processing advantage. Specifically, listeners trained to identify two “talkers” who only differed in characteristic VOTs showed faster talker identification for stimuli presented to the left ear compared to that presented to the right ear, which is interpreted as evidence of hemispheric lateralization consistent with task demands. Experiment 1 ( n =  97) aimed to replicate this finding and identify predictors of performance; experiment 2 ( n =  79) aimed to replicate this finding under conditions that better facilitate observation of laterality effects. Listeners completed a talker identification task during pretest, training, and posttest phases. Inhibition, category identification, and auditory acuity were also assessed in experiment 1. Listeners learned to use VOT for talker identity, which was positively associated with auditory acuity. Talker identification was not influenced by ear of presentation, and Bayes factors indicated strong support for the null. These results suggest that talker-specific phonetic variation is not sufficient to induce a left ear advantage for talker identification; together with the extant literature, this instead suggests that hemispheric lateralization for talker-specific phonetic variation requires phonetic variation to be conditioned on talker differences in source characteristics.