Native and non-native listeners’ perception of English consonants in different types of noise

Abstract

Please be advised that this information was generated on 2018-05-09 and may be subject to change. AbstractThis paper shows that the effect of different types of noise on recognition of different phonemes by native versus non-native listeners is highly variable, even within classes of phonemes with the same m anner or place of articulation. In a phoneme identification experiment, English and D utch listeners heard all 24 English consonants in VCV stimuli in quiet and in three types of noise: competing talker, speech shaped noise, and m odulated speech-shaped noise (all with SNRs of -6 dB). Differential effects of noise type for English and D utch lis teners were found for eight consonants (/p t k g m n q r/) but not for the other 16 consonants. F or those eight consonants, effects were again highly variable: each noise type hindered non-native listeners more than native listeners for some of the target sounds, but none of the noise types did so for all of the target sounds, not even for phonemes with the same m anner or place of articulation. The results imply that the noise types employed will strongly affect the outcomes o f any study of native and non-native speech perception in noise.

Influence of language experience on digit recognition by English and Chinese listeners

“…Different from previous studies (Rogers et al, 2006;Cooke et al, 2008;Shi, 2009;Broersma and Scharenborg, 2010;Garcia Lecumberri et al, 2010;Jin and Liu, 2012;Jin and Liu, 2014), we found a significant difference between CN L1 and L2 perception with only with interfering babble, not with SSN. Consistent with previous studies (Rogers et al, 2006;Cooke et al, 2008;Shi, 2009;Broersma and Scharenborg, 2010;Garcia Lecumberri et al, 2010;Jin and Liu, 2012), the difference in performance between L1 and L2 was greater for babble than for SSN. Interestingly, a slight release from masking (babble DRT -SSN DRT) was only observed for L1 in CN subjects; L1 performance with babble slightly worsened for EN subjects, relative to SSN.…”

“…Thus, non-native listeners in the "real" world must overcome both "imperfect" signals and knowledge of L2. Under adverse listening conditions, L2 listeners are more susceptible to interfering noise than are L1 listeners, regardless of speech stimulus type (phoneme, word, or sentence) (Rogers et al, 2006;Cooke et al, 2008;Shi, 2009;Broersma and Scharenborg, 2010;Garcia Lecumberri et al, 2010;Jin and Liu, 2012). Noise can interfere with speech by overlapping the target speech spectrum ("energetic masking") and/or by presenting temporal information that is similar to the target temporal envelope ("informational masking").…”

English vowel identification in long-term speech-shaped noise and multi-talker babble for English and Chinese listeners

“…This native advantage in speech perception was found across a wide variety of types of noise such as long-term speech-shaped noise (LTSSN) and babble, [1][2][3][4][5] depending on the number of cues that are available to listeners in speech tasks 3 (for a review, see Garcia Lecumberri et al 6 ). Compared with steady noise like LTSSN, multi-talker babble (MTB) is an amplitude-modulating noise in which listeners may take advantage of momentary dips, resulting in better speech perception in MTB than in LTSSN.…”

The effect on recognition memory of noise cancelling headphones in a noisy environment with native and nonnative speakers

“…However, what is known is that noise adversely affects speech intelligibility and more so for nonnative listeners than their native speaking counterparts. [13][14][15] In fact, comparing the effect of noise on performance to the effect of alcohol on performance, Molesworth et al found that simulated aircraft noise at 65 dB(A) degraded performance (recall of information) to a level equivalent to that produced by alcohol intoxication at a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) level of 0.10 for nonnative English speakers. For native English speakers, 65 dB(A) of simulated aircraft noise degraded performance equivalent to a BAC level of 0.05.…”

“…Hence, test material to quantify speech intelligibility is specifi cally designed with a balance of consonants and vowels. [17] The importance of consonants in speech intelligibility was illustrated by Broersma and Scharenborg [14] in a study with Dutch and English speakers, where they found out of the 24 consonants tested, eight consonants (/p, t, k, g, m, n, ŋ r/) consistently proved problematic in the presence of noise (e.g., competing talker, speech shaped noise and modulated speech shaped noise), particularly for the nonnative listeners.…”