The effect of background noise on the word activation process in nonnative spoken-word recognition.

Abstract

This article investigates 2 questions: (1) does the presence of background noise lead to a differential increase in the number of simultaneously activated candidate words in native and nonnative listening? And (2) do individual differences in listeners' cognitive and linguistic abilities explain the differential effect of background noise on (non-)native speech recognition? English and Dutch students participated in an English word recognition experiment, in which either a word's onset or offset was masked by noise. The native listeners outperformed the nonnative listeners in all listening conditions. Importantly, however, the effect of noise on the multiple activation process was found to be remarkably similar in native and nonnative listening. The presence of noise increased the set of candidate words considered for recognition in both native and nonnative listening. The results indicate that the observed performance differences between the English and Dutch listeners should not be primarily attributed to a differential effect of noise, but rather to the difference between native and nonnative listening. Additional analyses showed that word-initial information was found to be more important than word-final information during spoken-word recognition. When word-initial information was no longer reliably available word recognition accuracy dropped and word frequency information could no longer be used suggesting that word frequency information is strongly tied to the onset of words and the earliest moments of lexical access. Proficiency and inhibition ability were found to influence nonnative spoken-word recognition in noise, with a higher proficiency in the nonnative language and worse inhibition ability leading to improved recognition performance. (PsycINFO Database Record

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

“…Finally, half of the words in each condition were presented in speech-shaped noise at an SNR of 5 dB. Following the procedure described in Scharenborg et al (2018), noise was automatically added to the words using a PRAAT script. Each word was preceded and followed by 200 ms of noise, and 20 ms of lead-in noise was added.…”

“…Instead, the absence of a talker familiarity benefit in the word identification task could potentially be explained by the differences between native and non-native listeners, either related to the task demands or the type of information encoded during voice recognition training. Non-native listeners have greater difficulty processing speech than native listeners, especially in the presence of noise (Borghini & Hazan, 2018;Broersma, 2012;Garcia Lecumberri et al, 2010;Scharenborg et al, 2018;Weber & Cutler, 2004). It is possible that the word identification task was too hard for the listeners, which prevented them from benefiting from talker familiarity on the last experimental day.…”

“…While native listeners have been repeatedly shown to use indexical information in recognition memory tasks and in tasks involving lexical access when degraded stimuli are used, studies investigating the effect of indexical information on non-native speech processing are scarce. Perceiving speech in a non-native language is more difficult than in a native language due to the mismatch in sound categories between the native and non-native language of the listeners, which leads to spurious activation of candidate words from both the native and non-native language during word recognition (e.g., Broersma, 2012;Weber & Cutler, 2004;Scharenborg et al, 2018). Additionally, listening in the presence of noise is more challenging for non-native than for native listeners (e.g., Mayo et al, 1997;Rogers et al, 2006;Scharenborg et al, 2018;see Garcia Lecumberri et al (2010) for a review).…”

“…Perceiving speech in a non-native language is more difficult than in a native language due to the mismatch in sound categories between the native and non-native language of the listeners, which leads to spurious activation of candidate words from both the native and non-native language during word recognition (e.g., Broersma, 2012;Weber & Cutler, 2004;Scharenborg et al, 2018). Additionally, listening in the presence of noise is more challenging for non-native than for native listeners (e.g., Mayo et al, 1997;Rogers et al, 2006;Scharenborg et al, 2018;see Garcia Lecumberri et al (2010) for a review). Despite the non-native listeners' impaired sound perception, previous research has shown that non-native listeners are sensitive to indexical information in the speech signal at least in clear listening conditions.…”

Degree of Language Experience Modulates Visual Attention to Visible Speech and Iconic Gestures During Clear and Degraded Speech Comprehension

“…Understanding speech in the presence of noise has been demonstrated to be more difficult for non‐native than for native listeners (Bradlow & Alexander, ; Brouwer, Van Engen, Calandruccio, & Bradlow, ; Kilman, Zekveld, Hällgren, & Rönnberg, ; Mayo, Florentine, & Buus, ; Scharenborg, Coumans, & van Hout, ; Scharenborg & van Os, ), even when non‐native listeners are highly proficient (Cutler, Garcia Lecumberri, & Cooke, ). As noise decreases the available acoustic information in the speech signal, it might be more difficult for non‐native listeners to make a phonological mapping between the speech signal and perceptual/linguistic representations, as these might have not been fully tuned to the non‐native language (Flege, ; Iverson et al, ; Lecumberri et al, ).…”