Regional accent variation in the shadowing task: evidence for a loose perception-action coupling in speech.

We investigated the relation between action and perception in speech processing, using the shadowing task, in which participants repeat words they hear. In support of a tight perception-action link, previous work has shown that phonetic details in the stimulus influence the shadowing response. On the other hand, latencies do not seem to suffer if stimulus and response differ in their articulatory properties. The present investigation tested how perception influences production when participants are confronted with regional variation. Results showed that participants often imitate a regional variation if it occurs in the stimulus set but tend to stick to their variant if the stimuli are consistent. Participants were forced or induced to correct by the experimental instructions. Articulatory stimulus-response differences do not lead to latency costs. These data indicate that speech perception does not necessarily recruit the production system.