Abstract：
Recognizing talkers\' identity via speech is an important social skill in interpersonal interaction. Behavioral evidence has shown that listeners can identify better the voices of their native language than those of a non-native language, which is known as the language familiarity effect (LFE). However, its underlying neural mechanisms remain unclear. This study therefore investigated how the LFE occurs at the neural level by employing functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Late unbalanced bilinguals were first asked to learn to associate strangers\' voices with their identities and then tested for recognizing the talkers\' identities based on their voices speaking a language either highly familiar (i.e., native language Chinese), or moderately familiar (i.e., second language English), or completely unfamiliar (i.e., Ewe) to participants. Participants identified talkers the most accurately in Chinese and the least accurately in Ewe. Talker identification was quicker in Chinese than in English and Ewe but reaction time did not differ between the two non-native languages. At the neural level, recognizing voices speaking Chinese relative to English/Ewe produced less activity in the inferior frontal gyrus, precentral/postcentral gyrus, supramarginal gyrus, and superior temporal sulcus/gyrus while no difference was found between English and Ewe, indicating facilitation of voice identification by the automatic phonological encoding in the native language. These findings shed new light on the interrelations between language ability and voice recognition, revealing that the brain activation pattern of the LFE depends on the automaticity of language processing.
摘要：
通过语音识别说话者的身份是人际交往中的一项重要社会技能。行为证据表明，听众可以比非母语更好地识别其母语的声音，这被称为语言熟悉效应(LFE)。然而,其潜在的神经机制仍不清楚。因此，本研究通过采用功能性近红外光谱（fNIRS）研究了LFE如何在神经水平上发生。晚期不平衡的双语者首先被要求学习将陌生人的声音与他们的身份联系起来，然后根据他们的声音说一种非常熟悉的语言（即，母语中文)，或适度熟悉(即，第二语言英语)，或完全不熟悉(即，Ewe）给参与者。参与者在中文中最准确地识别了说话者，而在母羊中最不准确。中文的说话者识别速度比英语和母羊快，但两种非母语的反应时间没有差异。在神经层面，识别说中文的声音相对于英语/母羊在额下回产生较少的活动，中央前/中央后回,颈上回，和颞上沟/回，而英语和母羊之间没有发现差异，指示通过本地语言的自动语音编码来促进语音识别。这些发现为语言能力与语音识别之间的相互关系提供了新的思路，揭示了LFE的大脑激活模式取决于语言处理的自动化。
