Social meaning and speech perception by Benjamin Munson (University of Minnesota, Etats-Unis)
It is well established that listeners may categorize ambiguous sounds differently when they are led to believe something about the person who produced them, such as their age, social class, gender, or regional background (Hay, Drager & Nolan, 2006 ; McGowan 2011 ; Staum Casasanto 2008 ; Strand & Johnson 1996). This talk will review a set of studies designed to examine two aspects of this phenomenon. First, are the effects different depending on the specific social meaning ascribed to the variation (i.e., what is it about gender that makes listeners change their categorizations when the speaker is suggested to be a man or a woman?). Second, do these effects occur relatively early and automatically in processing, or do they reflect ambiguity resolutions that occur relatively late in processing ?
