Talker-familiarity benefit in non-native recognition memory and word identification: The role of listening conditions and proficiency

Abstract

Native listeners benefit from talker familiarity in recognition memory and word identification, especially in adverse listening conditions. The present study addresses the talker familiarity benefit in non-native listening, and the role of listening conditions and listeners' lexical proficiency in the emergence of this benefit. Dutch non-native listeners of English were trained to identify four English talkers over 4 days. Talker familiarity benefit in recognition memory was investigated using a recognition memory task with "old" and "new" words produced by familiar and unfamiliar talkers presented either in the clear or in noise. Talker familiarity benefit in word identification was investigated by comparing non-native listeners' performances on the first and the last day in identifying words in different noise levels, produced by either a trained (included in the voice recognition training) or by an untrained talker (not included in the voice recognition training). Non-native listeners demonstrated a talker familiarity benefit in recognition memory, which was modulated by listening conditions and proficiency in the non-native language. No talker familiarity benefit was found in word identification. These results suggest that, similar to native listening, both linguistic and indexical (talker-specific) information influence non-native speech perception. However, this is dependent on the task and type of speech recognition process involved.

Rapid adaptation to fully intelligible nonnative-accented speech reduces listening effort

“…The experiments reported here also provide the first evidence that listeners adapt to native and nonnative speech over time such that they expend less listening effort as they become more familiar with the accent or specific talker’s voice, as indicated by the overall decrease in response times and pupil dilation over the course of the experiment for both talkers. These findings regarding listening effort are conceptually similar to previous work showing that familiarity with an accent or talker facilitates identification of speech (though see Drozdova et al, 2019, for evidence that this may not extend to nonnative listeners with low proficiency). Indeed, intelligibility of accented speech improves with exposure (Bradlow & Bent, 2008; Clarke & Garrett, 2004), even independent of the talker or the particular accent (Baese-Berk et al, 2013; Bradlow & Bent, 2008; Sidaras et al, 2009), and being familiar with the talker improves the listener’s ability to recognise spoken words in background noise (Nygaard et al, 1994).…”

The use of exemplars differs between native and non-native listening

“…It is unclear whether there was a difference between L1 and L2 processing because the difference in the size of the exemplar effects was not statistically assessed. This study confirms Drozdova et al (2019) and Winters et al (2013) that also L2 listeners may store information about speaker voice and use it for subsequent word processing, but it does not reliably show differences in exemplar effects between L1 and L2 processing. Morano, ten Bosch, and Ernestus (2019) studied exemplar effects for reduced pronunciation variants of words.…”

“…A few studies investigated exemplar effects for speaker voice for non-native listeners, which is a variation type known to native listeners of all languages (e.g., Winters, Lichtman & Weber, 2013). For instance, Drozdova, van Hout, and Scharenborg (2019) tested exemplar effects of speaker voice in noise and clean speech for Dutch non-native listeners of English. Participants engaged in a word identification task and in an old-new judgment task.…”

Design of College English News Listening Teaching System Based on Improved SPOC by using IoT

“…Research shows that "written expression is not only the writing of spoken language on paper, but also the real expression of accurate language expression, so it is of great value to language learning." Therefore, listening teaching can greatly improve one's language level and ability [1][2][3]. SPOC, in response to the needs of educational reform, breaks the shortcomings of purely online teaching and traditional face-to-face teaching and injects new vitality into traditional teaching.…”

“…Therefore, with the increasing degree of opening to the outside world and the impact of economic globalization, the demand for English talents is also increasing, which has led to higher and higher requirements for students' English level. Many colleges and uni-versities have set scores for English admission, and universities have strict requirements for graduation and admission [1,3,4]. The proportion of English listening scores in all kinds of tests is relatively high.…”