Smith, Amy2023-10-242023-10-242023-06https://hdl.handle.net/1794/2903034 pagesU.S. criminal justice settings disproportionately involve minority defendants and white judges/juries, often involving cross-accent communication. Although it is known that racial and linguistic profiling can lead to negative social outcomes, there is little literature specifically exploring the effect of a speaker’s accent on a listener’s memory. The present study investigates how a listener’s recognition memory (have I heard this before?) and source memory (who said it?) are affected by the accent of the speaker, being either a native English speaker or native Spanish speaker speaking English. Forty-four participants, the majority of whom were native English speakers, completed a 3-phase experimental design involving familiarization, exposure, and a surprise memory test. Results demonstrated a significantly better performance for the recognition memory of content presented by native speakers. On the other hand, performance for partial source memory (remembering whether the speaker had an accent) was significantly better for the content presented by non-native speakers. Performance for specific source memory (remembering the specific speaker who produced the speech) was also better for the content presented by non-native speakers, but this difference was not statistically significant. These findings indicate that aspects of witness testimony regarding what was said may be more accurate if the witness is testifying about content presented by someone without an accent. They also suggest that native English-speaking witnesses may more accurately identify a perpetrator as having an accent, but they may not necessarily be able to determine the specific accented speaker. Future research directions are proposed to expand upon these findings, and suggestions are made for improving cross-accent communication practices in courtroom settings.enCreative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0-USAccented SpeechNative SpeechRecognition MemorySource MemoryLinguistic BiasCourtroom CommunicationCross-accent CommunicationThesis / Dissertation