Speakers strongly vary in their imitation abilities, but the factors underlying this variation are still unclear. This study examined whether individual differences in working memory affect the accuracy of imitation of phonological and phonetic aspects of French prosody. Thirty-six French native speakers were asked to listen to twenty sentences extracted from a read and a spontaneous speech corpus, and to repeat the words and the way the utterances were said. Overall, obligatory phonological events (boundary tones and the H* tone of LH* rises) were more accurately reproduced than optional phonological ones (the Hi tone of LHi rises) and their speaker-specific phonetic details. Speakers with higher working memory capacities were more accurate in phonological imitation of both obligatory and optional phonological events, possibly because of their increased capacity in retaining the prosodic characteristics of the utterances. Imitating read speech, which was richer in terms of number of LHi rises, was slightly more difficult for speakers with low working memory capacities. There was no relation between working memory and imitation of phonetic aspects, which showed more idiosyncratic patterns of imitation. Our findings indicate that working memory constraints should be taken into account in modelling prosodic imitation, along with linguistic and task-specific factors.

说话者的模仿能力差异很大，但造成这种差异的因素尚不清楚。这项研究检查了工作记忆的个体差异是否会影响模仿法语韵律的语音和语音方面的准确性。三十六名以法语为母语的人被要求听从阅读和自发语音语料库中提取的二十个句子，并重复单词和说话的方式。总体而言，强制性语音事件（边界音和 LH* 上升的 H* 音）比可选语音事件（LHi 上升的 Hi 音）及其特定于说话者的语音细节更准确地再现。具有较高工作记忆容量的说话者在对强制性和可选语音事件的语音模仿方面更准确，可能是因为它们增加了保留话语韵律特征的能力。对于低工作记忆容量的说话者来说，模仿在 LHi 上升次数方面更丰富的朗读语音稍微困难一些。工作记忆与语音方面的模仿没有关系，模仿表现出更多的特异模式。我们的研究结果表明，在模拟韵律模仿时应考虑工作记忆限制，以及语言和特定任务的因素。工作记忆与语音方面的模仿没有关系，模仿表现出更多的特异模式。我们的研究结果表明，在模拟韵律模仿时应考虑工作记忆约束，以及语言和特定任务的因素。工作记忆与语音方面的模仿没有关系，模仿表现出更多的特异模式。我们的研究结果表明，在模拟韵律模仿时应考虑工作记忆限制，以及语言和特定任务的因素。