Working memory supports rapid talker and accent accommodation: An individual differences investigation

Published on 17th February, 2026.

Detalhes bibliográficos
Autores: McLaughlin, Drew J., Teuscher, Grace E., Baese-Berk, Melissa M., Van Engen, Kristin J.
Formato: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2026
País:España
Recursos:Universidad del País Vasco
Repositorio:Addi. Archivo Digital para la Docencia y la Investigación
OAI Identifier:oai:addi.ehu.eus:10810/78246
Acesso em linha:http://hdl.handle.net/10810/78246
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palavra-chave:Speech perception
Working memory
Talker accommodation
Accent
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spelling Working memory supports rapid talker and accent accommodation: An individual differences investigationMcLaughlin, Drew J.Teuscher, Grace E.Baese-Berk, Melissa M.Van Engen, Kristin J.Speech perceptionWorking memoryTalker accommodationAccentPublished on 17th February, 2026.Under multitalker listening conditions, listeners appear to rapidly accommodate variability in speaker productions. However, evidence indicates that this trial-to-trial accommodation incurs a processing cost and is amplified by accent differences among talkers. The present study investigated how individual listener differences in working memory capacity and attentional control may predict the degree of processing costs (as measured by response time and accuracy) incurred by trial-to-trial switches in English talkers of first language (L1) American accent and second language (L2) Mandarin Chinese accent. Listeners completed a dual-task experiment with a primary listening task and secondary non-linguistic task as well as measures of working memory capacity (the Word Auditory Recognition and Recall Measure) and attentional control (the Trail Making Test and a Stroop Test). Results indicated that, on trials with a talker switch, listeners with smaller working memory capacities were slower to respond to the secondary task and had poorer recognition accuracy for the primary task. The measures of attentional control did not predict switching costs. One marginal interaction emerged between Stroop test scores (typically used to assess selective attention and inhibitory control) and the accent manipulation, such that listeners with better attentional control had marginally better overall recognition accuracy for L2 accent. Working memory capacity, on the other hand, did not predict differences in recognition accuracy between accent conditions. We conclude that working memory plays a critical role in supporting rapid (trial-to-trial) talker accommodation. Attentional control may support processing of L2 accent more generally but not be critical for rapid accommodation.This work was supported by National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship DGE-1745038, NSF BCS-2020805, NSF 2146993, the Basque Government through the BERC 2022-2025 program, the Spanish State Research Agency through BCBL Severo Ochoa excellence accreditation (CEX2020-001010-S), and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 101103964 (PerMSAA).Springer Nature202620262026info:eu-repo/semantics/articleapplication/pdfhttp://hdl.handle.net/10810/78246reponame:Addi. Archivo Digital para la Docencia y la Investigacióninstname:Universidad del País VascoInglésinfo:eu-repo/grantAgreement/GV/BERC2022-2025/info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/AEI/SEV-CEX2020-001010-S/info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/MSCA/101103964https://link.springer.com/journal/13423info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess© The Author(s) 2026. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.oai:addi.ehu.eus:10810/782462026-06-18T09:23:17Z
dc.title.none.fl_str_mv Working memory supports rapid talker and accent accommodation: An individual differences investigation
title Working memory supports rapid talker and accent accommodation: An individual differences investigation
spellingShingle Working memory supports rapid talker and accent accommodation: An individual differences investigation
McLaughlin, Drew J.
Speech perception
Working memory
Talker accommodation
Accent
title_short Working memory supports rapid talker and accent accommodation: An individual differences investigation
title_full Working memory supports rapid talker and accent accommodation: An individual differences investigation
title_fullStr Working memory supports rapid talker and accent accommodation: An individual differences investigation
title_full_unstemmed Working memory supports rapid talker and accent accommodation: An individual differences investigation
title_sort Working memory supports rapid talker and accent accommodation: An individual differences investigation
dc.creator.none.fl_str_mv McLaughlin, Drew J.
Teuscher, Grace E.
Baese-Berk, Melissa M.
Van Engen, Kristin J.
author McLaughlin, Drew J.
author_facet McLaughlin, Drew J.
Teuscher, Grace E.
Baese-Berk, Melissa M.
Van Engen, Kristin J.
author_role author
author2 Teuscher, Grace E.
Baese-Berk, Melissa M.
Van Engen, Kristin J.
author2_role author
author
author
dc.subject.none.fl_str_mv Speech perception
Working memory
Talker accommodation
Accent
topic Speech perception
Working memory
Talker accommodation
Accent
description Published on 17th February, 2026.
publishDate 2026
dc.date.none.fl_str_mv 2026
2026
2026
dc.type.none.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/article
format article
dc.identifier.none.fl_str_mv http://hdl.handle.net/10810/78246
url http://hdl.handle.net/10810/78246
dc.language.none.fl_str_mv Inglés
language_invalid_str_mv Inglés
dc.relation.none.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/GV/BERC2022-2025/
info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/AEI/SEV-CEX2020-001010-S/
info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/MSCA/101103964
https://link.springer.com/journal/13423
dc.rights.none.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
eu_rights_str_mv openAccess
dc.format.none.fl_str_mv application/pdf
dc.publisher.none.fl_str_mv Springer Nature
publisher.none.fl_str_mv Springer Nature
dc.source.none.fl_str_mv reponame:Addi. Archivo Digital para la Docencia y la Investigación
instname:Universidad del País Vasco
instname_str Universidad del País Vasco
reponame_str Addi. Archivo Digital para la Docencia y la Investigación
collection Addi. Archivo Digital para la Docencia y la Investigación
repository.name.fl_str_mv
repository.mail.fl_str_mv
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score 15,81155

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