Assessing voice familiarity in normal-hearing adults—Preliminary results

The ability to recognize familiar voices is crucial for effective communication, with infants showing early sensitivity to their mother’s voices. Despite extensive research in auditory perception, understanding how normal-hearing adults distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar voices remains limited. This study aimed to investigate the behavioral responses of normal-hearing adults to familiar versus unfamiliar voices. Building upon existing literature and relevant models, we hypothesized that reaction times would correlate with individuals' ability to recognize familiar versus unfamiliar voices and that shorter reaction times would occur when additional speech cues were embedded in the acoustic stimulation. Eleven adults participated, exhibiting perfect accuracy in identifying their mother’s voices and rejecting voices of female strangers. Reaction times were significantly shorter (χ2 = 8.985, p = 0.003) when participants responded to their mother’s voices compared to those of female strangers, suggesting a cognitive advantage in processing familiar voices. Additionally, reaction times were significantly shorter (χ2 = 19.032, p < 0.001) for disyllable words compared to monosyllables, indicating differential processing mechanisms for linguistic stimuli. Our study contributes to understanding the cognitive processes involved in voice recognition and speaker identification. Clinical implications include potential interventions for voice recognition disorders and strategies for memory enhancement.