Normal-hearing English-as-a-second-language listeners’ recognition of English words in competing signals

Abstract

English-as-a-second-language (ESL) listeners have difficulty perceiving English speech presented in background noise. The current study furthered this line of investigations by including participants who varied widely in their age of English acquisition and length of English learning: 24 native English monolingual (EML), 12 simultaneous bilingual (SBL), 10 early ESL (E-ESL), and 14 late ESL (L-ESL) listeners. Word recognition scores were obtained in quiet and in the presence of speech-weighted noise, multi-talker babble, forward-playing music, and time-reversed music. All words and competing signals were presented at 45 dB HL. EML and SBL listeners' performances were found to be similar across test conditions. ESL, especially L-ESL listeners, performed significantly more poorly in all conditions than EML and SBL listeners. Overall, speech-weighted noise and multi-talker babble showed greater masking effect than music; however, the difference in performance between L-ESL and EML listeners was the largest for the music maskers, indicating that L-ESL listeners are susceptible to weaker maskers. Age of acquisition and length of learning were both shown to be good indicators of SBL and ESL listeners' performance.

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").…”

How “Proficient” Is Proficient? Bilingual Listeners' Recognition of English Words in Noise

“…Many bilingual listeners learned the second language later in life; as a consequence, it is difficult for them to master the language to the same degree as a native listener. Numerous studies exist to substantiate this point of view (e.g., Flege, MacKay, & Meador, 1999;Mayo, Florentine, & Buus, 1997;Nakamura & Gordon-Salant, 2011;Rogers, Lister, Febo, Besing, & Abrams, 2006;Shi, 2009Shi, , 2010Stuart, Zhang, & Swink, 2010;von Hapsburg & Bahng, 2006;von Hapsburg, Champlin, & Shetty, 2004;Weiss & Dempsey, 2008). Stuart et al (2010), for instance, presented English sentences in noise to late MandarinEnglish bilinguals (age of acquisition: 10-13 years).…”

“…As shown earlier, many bilingual studies demonstrated that bilingual individuals' word recognition is affected by their language background to a higher degree in noise than that in quiet (e.g., Rogers et al, 2006;Shi, 2009;Shi & Sánchez, 2010). In one study (Shi & Sánchez, 2010), Spanish-English bilinguals' recognition of English and Spanish words was analyzed at different SNRs.…”

Effects of linguistic experience on the ability to benefit from temporal and spectral masker modulation

“…In both datasets, the variance in estimates of SRT for the non-native and native listeners was comparable (0.9 dB in the present study). Some studies have reported greater individual differences in non-native than native speakers (e.g., Mayo et al, 1997), a result that likely reflects heterogeneity in the general population of non-native speakers with different linguistic backgrounds (Shi, 2009). These observations highlight the fact that the present results may not extend to listeners who acquired English prior to 10 yrs of age.…”