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Within the context of investigations of cognitive spatial models, the study analyzes the effect of varying the informational structure of linguistic survey instruments. A group of informants was asked to draw German language areas on different types of geographic maps. First, in a quantitative approach we show how the specific informational structure of each map type influences the frequency and prominence of the named language areas. The second part of the study focuses on the localization of the mentioned language areas. Here we discuss the specific effects of each type of map and the information it contains on the localization. We also discuss general characteristics of the conceptualization of linguistic space as well as differences in the perception of the prominent language areas.

One of the most significant features in forensic phonetics used to identify a speaker is his or her so-called regional accent. In a speaker profiling task, German experts on voice comparison were evaluated concerning their performance and their methodological approach in accent identification. As a result, the experts as a group performed well; only a very few severe confusions of regional accents occurred. Results also showed that the experts applied different strategies in identifying a speaker's regional accent; the different methods were 1) aural-perceptual analysis, 2) acoustic analysis, 3) consultation of audio databases and 4) consultation of the literature on dialects. Participants also differed considerably in the amount of time they needed to complete the task. The most important finding is that no correlations existed between the performance (i.e. error rate) of the participants and 1) the time spent, 2) the number of methods applied, 3) the kind of methods applied or 4) the perceived degree of difficulty. This leads to the conclusion that performance in dialect identification may predominantly depend on the individual (innate or trained) skills of the expert in speaker identification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]