Perceiving people from voices

Listeners cannot only perceive what is being said when hearing a voice, they can also glean information about who is talking: Are they familiar? Are they female or male? Listeners can, however, not recognise another person without knowing what their voice sounds like. For that, listeners need to have a mental representation of this person's voice. For this project, I will investigate the nature of representations of identity and other speaker characteristics. Using behavioural studies, I will explore which information is encoded in representations. Using magnetoencephalography (MEG), I will examine how different speaker characteristics are recognised over time, and how associated may mental representations interact. This project will help to better understand how people perceive others from their voices. With voice-based tech gaining popularity and hearing loss being endemic, the proposed research can inform the development of applications designed to support the daily lives of both clinical and non-clinical populations.