THE EFFECT OF TALKER VARIABILITY ON WORD RECOGNITION IN PRESCHOOL-CHILDREN

In a series of experiments, the authors investigated the effects of ta lker variability on children's word recognition. In Experiment 1, when stimuli were presented in the clear, 3- and 5-year-olds were less acc urate at identifying words spoken by multiple talkers than those spoke n by a single talker when the multiple-talker list was presented first . In Experiment 2, when words were presented in noise, 3-, 4-, and 5-y ear-olds again performed worse in the multiple-talker condition than i n the single-talker condition, this time regardless of order; processi ng multiple talkers became easier with age. Experiment 3 showed that b oth children and adults were slower to repeat words from multiple-talk er than those from single-talker lists. More important, children (but not adults) matched acoustic properties of the stimuli (specifically, duration). These results provide important new information about the d evelopment of talker normalization in speech perception and spoken wor d recognition.