“Lass frooby noo!” the interference of song lyrics and meaning on speech intelligibility.

Brouwer, Susanne; Akkermans, Noortje; Hendriks, Lieke; Uden, Hanne van; Wilms, Veerle

doi:10.1037/xap0000368

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 52 publications

(119 reference statements)

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“…com), which allowed participants to participate from their homes. Note that previous work has shown similar findings on an off-line compared to an online speech-in-noise task (e.g., Brouwer et al, 2021). Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this pretest, as well as the SNR and gestural enhancement pretest and experiment, was fully conducted online.…”

Section: Gesture Pretestmentioning

confidence: 62%

The Effects of Iconic Gestures and Babble Language on Word Intelligibility in Sentence Context

Wilms

Drijvers

Brouwer

2022

J Speech Lang Hear Res

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Purpose: This study investigated to what extent iconic co-speech gestures help word intelligibility in sentence context in two different linguistic maskers (native vs. foreign). It was hypothesized that sentence recognition improves with the presence of iconic co-speech gestures and with foreign compared to native babble. Method: Thirty-two native Dutch participants performed a Dutch word recognition task in context in which they were presented with videos in which an actress uttered short Dutch sentences (e.g., Ze begint te openen, “She starts to open”). Participants were presented with a total of six audiovisual conditions: no background noise (i.e., clear condition) without gesture, no background noise with gesture, French babble without gesture, French babble with gesture, Dutch babble without gesture, and Dutch babble with gesture; and they were asked to type down what was said by the Dutch actress. The accurate identification of the action verbs at the end of the target sentences was measured. Results: The results demonstrated that performance on the task was better in the gesture compared to the nongesture conditions (i.e., gesture enhancement effect). In addition, performance was better in French babble than in Dutch babble. Conclusions: Listeners benefit from iconic co-speech gestures during communication and from foreign background speech compared to native. These insights into multimodal communication may be valuable to everyone who engages in multimodal communication and especially to a public who often works in public places where competing speech is present in the background.

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Section: Gesture Pretestmentioning

confidence: 62%

The Effects of Iconic Gestures and Babble Language on Word Intelligibility in Sentence Context

Wilms

Drijvers

Brouwer

2022

J Speech Lang Hear Res

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“…In accordance with our previous behavioral study (Brown & Bidelman, 2022), we found speech comprehension was further impaired in music with vocals than in instrumental music. We attribute this decline to the informational masking introduced by the linguistic content of the vocals (Brouwer et al, 2021; Kidd & Colburn, 2017; Scharenborg & Larson, 2018). However, we previously found that comprehension was worse in unfamiliar music.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Familiarity of Background Music Modulates the Cortical Tracking of Target Speech at the Cocktail Party

Brown

Bidelman

2022

Preprint

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The “cocktail party” problem – how a listener perceives speech in noisy environments – is typically studied using speech (multi-talker babble) or noise maskers. However, realistic cocktail party scenarios often include background music (e.g., coffee shops, concerts). Studies investigating music’s effects on concurrent speech perception have predominantly used highly controlled synthetic music or shaped noise which do not reflect naturalistic listening environments. Behaviorally, familiar background music and songs with vocals/lyrics inhibit concurrent speech recognition. Here, we investigated the neural bases of these effects. While recording multichannel EEG, participants listened to an audiobook while popular songs (or silence) played in the background at 0 dB signal-to-noise ratio. Songs were either familiar or unfamiliar to listeners and featured either vocals or isolated instrumentals from the original audio recordings. Comprehension questions probed task engagement. We used temporal response functions (TRFs) to isolate cortical tracking to the target speech envelope and analyzed neural responses around 100 ms (i.e., auditory N1 wave). We found that speech comprehension was, expectedly, impaired during background music(s) compared to silence. Target speech tracking was further hindered by the presence of vocals. When masked by familiar music, response latencies to speech were less susceptible to informational masking, suggesting concurrent neural tracking of speech was easier during music known to the listener. These differential effects of music familiarity were further exacerbated in listeners with less musical ability. Our neuroimaging results and their dependence on listening skills are consistent with early attentional gain mechanisms where familiar music is easier to tune out (listeners already know the song’s expectancies) and thus can allocate fewer attentional resources to the background music to better monitor concurrent speech material.

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“…In accordance with our previous behavioral study [ 5 ], we found speech comprehension was further impaired in music containing vocals than in instrumental music. We attribute this decline to the informational masking introduced by the linguistic content of the vocals [ 49 , 50 , 51 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Familiarity of Background Music Modulates the Cortical Tracking of Target Speech at the “Cocktail Party”

Brown

Bidelman

2022

Brain Sciences

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The “cocktail party” problem—how a listener perceives speech in noisy environments—is typically studied using speech (multi-talker babble) or noise maskers. However, realistic cocktail party scenarios often include background music (e.g., coffee shops, concerts). Studies investigating music’s effects on concurrent speech perception have predominantly used highly controlled synthetic music or shaped noise, which do not reflect naturalistic listening environments. Behaviorally, familiar background music and songs with vocals/lyrics inhibit concurrent speech recognition. Here, we investigated the neural bases of these effects. While recording multichannel EEG, participants listened to an audiobook while popular songs (or silence) played in the background at a 0 dB signal-to-noise ratio. Songs were either familiar or unfamiliar to listeners and featured either vocals or isolated instrumentals from the original audio recordings. Comprehension questions probed task engagement. We used temporal response functions (TRFs) to isolate cortical tracking to the target speech envelope and analyzed neural responses around 100 ms (i.e., auditory N1 wave). We found that speech comprehension was, expectedly, impaired during background music compared to silence. Target speech tracking was further hindered by the presence of vocals. When masked by familiar music, response latencies to speech were less susceptible to informational masking, suggesting concurrent neural tracking of speech was easier during music known to the listener. These differential effects of music familiarity were further exacerbated in listeners with less musical ability. Our neuroimaging results and their dependence on listening skills are consistent with early attentional-gain mechanisms where familiar music is easier to tune out (listeners already know the song’s expectancies) and thus can allocate fewer attentional resources to the background music to better monitor concurrent speech material.

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“Lass frooby noo!” the interference of song lyrics and meaning on speech intelligibility.

Cited by 5 publications

References 52 publications

The Effects of Iconic Gestures and Babble Language on Word Intelligibility in Sentence Context

The Effects of Iconic Gestures and Babble Language on Word Intelligibility in Sentence Context

Familiarity of Background Music Modulates the Cortical Tracking of Target Speech at the Cocktail Party

Familiarity of Background Music Modulates the Cortical Tracking of Target Speech at the “Cocktail Party”

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