In our globalised world, it has become commonplace to interact with speakers of different accents, both native and non-native, on a regular basis. My research looks at how we process the speech of these speakers. In particular, I aim to investigate how our implicit and explicit attitudes towards specific accents influence how we perceive, represent and retrieve information during interactions. I will also examine how interacting with speakers of different accents affects the cognitive representation of our own speech. The outcomes of the research are intended to improve our understanding of how we perceive and process accents. They will further raise awareness for how an explicit or implicit bias against certain accents influences our interactions.
