Individual Variation in the Perception of Speech in Multiple Types of Adverse Listening Conditions
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Date
2017
Authors
McLaughlin, Drew J.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
During speech communication, both environmental noise and talker-related variation
(e.g., accented speech) can create adverse conditions for the listener. Individuals recruit
additional cognitive, linguistic, or perceptual resources when faced with such challenges,
and they vary in their ability to understand degraded and/or variable speech. In the
present study, we compare individuals’ ability on a variety of skills—including receptive
vocabulary, selective attention, rhythm perception, and working memory—with
transcription accuracy (i.e., intelligibility scores) for four adverse listening conditions:
native speech in speech-shaped noise, native speech in single-talker babble, nonnative
accented speech in quiet, and nonnative accented speech in speech-shaped noise. The
results show that intelligibility scores within adverse listening conditions of the same
class (i.e., either environmental or talker-related) significantly correlate. For cognitive,
linguistic, and perceptual skills, receptive vocabulary significantly predicts performance
on all four adverse listening conditions, while working memory only significantly
predicts performance on conditions with nonnative accented speech. Rhythm perception
was found to significantly predict speaker type (i.e., native versus nonnative speaker).
Taken together, these results indicate that listeners may recruit similar resources when
faced with adverse listening conditions in general, but specific additional resources when
faced with certain types of listening challenges.
Description
Submitted to the Undergraduate Library Research Award scholarship competition: (2017-2018). 39 pages.