Blurb:

Guided by simple, general and neutrally plausible explanation to questions pertaining to speech perception phenomena, we examine a classic speech phenomenon – extrinsic talker normalization – and search for general perceptual explanations. In particular, we present a series of experiments that cast doubt on traditional explanations based on the extraction of talker-specific acoustic-phonetic maps or estimations of vocal tract dimensions. In the place of these theories, we present evidence favoring a general auditory process underlying these effects and provide some speculation about its function beyond speech perception.