Accent bias in legal contexts

Studies have shown that foreign accents affect a speaker’s inferred knowledge of credibility. But we have little information about the cognitive processes and reasoning mechanisms that lead to this outcome (e.g., whether individual accent features activate fast stereotypical categorisations or whether judgments emerge cumulatively over time) or of the individual and contextual factors that moderate it (e.g., listener background and prior exposure, social setting). The goal of this project is to address these issues by examining inferred credibility of foreign accents in a courtroom setting. Using virtual reality to elicit attitudinal responses within information-rich contexts, the project will identify how social and rolelinked stereotypes interact with individual listener factors to constrain how foreign accents are evaluated.

This project is part of "HUM.AI.N.-ACCENT: Bridging Communication Gaps in Human and Human-AI Interactions: The Role of Accented Speech on Neurocognitive mechanisms and Social Dynamics", coordinated by the Horizon Europe MSCA Doctoral Network.