Anti-voice adaptation suggests prototype-based coding of voice identity

• Main Authors: Marianne eLatinus, Pascal eBelin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2011-07-01
• Series: Frontiers in Psychology
• Subjects: Voice; adaptation; representation; morphing; Aftereffects; Average
• Online Access: http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00175/full

We used perceptual aftereffects induced by adaptation with anti-voice stimuli to investigate voice identity representations. Participants learned a set of voices then were tested on a voice identification task with vowel stimuli morphed between identities, after different conditions of adaptation. In Experiment 1, participants chose the identity opposite to the adapting anti-voice significantly more often than the other two identities (e.g., after being adapted to anti-A, they identified the average voice as A). In Experiment 2, participants showed a bias for identities opposite to the adaptor specifically for anti-voice, but not for non anti-voice adaptors. These results are strikingly similar to adaptation aftereffects observed for facial identity. They are compatible with a representation of individual voice identities in a multidimensional perceptual voice space referenced on a voice prototype.