The effect of background noise on the ability to perceive and remember unrelated words in nonnative listeners

Abstract

Nonnative listeners find it more difficult to meet the challenges presented by additional background noise than do native listeners (Ezzatian, Avivi and Schneider, Speech Comm, 52, 919-929, 2010) but it is not known whether it is more difficult for them to remember what was said in noisy situations than for native listeners. Previous studies have acknowledged that the effect of background noise on the ability to perceive and remember unrelated words is greater in older adults than younger adults. The present study investigates auditory memory performance in nonnative younger adults, using a paired-associate paradigm in three conditions: quiet, continuous babble and babble during word presentation only. Noise levels were adjusted to equate for individual differences in the ability to identify single words in noise. The initial results suggest that nonnative listeners perform similarly to native young adults in the quiet and continuous conditions but worse in the babble during the wordpresentation-only condition. These results suggest that stream segregation may be slower in nonnative listeners when the masker and the target words start at the same time.