dialect perception paper

I found this paper very interesting and accessible overall. Except for some statistical terms that were above my head, I was able to follow along fairly easily. I thought the research question was appropriate for us since we've talked a lot about it in class. Just the other day, we had an extended discussion about whether being exposed to a variety of accents sensitized or desensitized people. The results from the article suggest that such exposure is sensitizing, which is what I would have guessed. I would love to see if this applies to guessing racial/ethnic background from recorded speech as well.  

One result that I found interesting was that New England was selected less than other regions. Also, the Mid-Atlantic region was usually mis-categorized as New England. This suggested to me that New England and Mid-Atlantic were hard to distinguish between. This made a lot of sense to me, since I find them to be similar. I think the categorization might have been more accurate if the New England and Mid-Atlantic regions were merged. Although I know there are distinctions between the two, I think the distinctions are hard for outsiders to hear. I think it is just as logical for the New England and Mid-Atlantic regions to be merged as for the entirety of the West to be lumped together.