Effects of Different Types of Noise on Foreign Accent Adaptation

Understanding foreign-accented speech can be difficult. Comprehension can be further compromised by environmental noise. Previous research has shown that listeners are able to adapt rapidly to a foreign accent. The present study examines how foreign accent (FA) adaptation is affected by two kinds of noise: speech-shaped white noise and competing speech. Native English listeners heard blocks of sentences produced by native-accented or foreign-accented talkers (Korean, Spanish) mixed with either type of noise, and indicated if the word written on the screen and the last word they heard were the same by pressing a button. Results show that listener responses were more accurate (though slower) when sentences were mixed with competing speech than with speech-shaped white noise. These findings suggest that while competing speech made word recognition more effortful, ultimately it was less disruptive than white noise for FA adaptation.Linguistic

Speaking style adaptations across the lifespan

In everyday life, speech communication occurs in suboptimal or adverse conditions (e.g., talking to a listener who is hard of hearing; presence of noise in the environment). This study examines how talkers change the way they speak in response to challenging communicative situations. We investigate what consequences such changes have on intelligibility and whether speaking style adaptations vary with the talker's age.Linguistic

On the Accented/Unaccented Distinction in Western Basque and the Typology of Accentual Systems

Proceedings of the Twenty-Sixth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: General Session and Parasession on Aspect (2000

Lexical, Pragmatic and Positional Effects on Prosody in Two Dialects of Croatian and Serbian: An Acoustic Study

203 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2002.Briefly, the results of the acoustic studies conducted show that there is a difference between the two dialects in their phonological properties: as mentioned, the Belgrade dialect has a pitch-accent and vowel length contrast while the Zagreb dialect does not. Lexical pitch-accent and vowel length contrasts are found to influence the expression of pragmatic focus: the phonemic contrasts are enlarged in narrow focus. Tonal crowding in the phrase-final positions additionally affects tonal alignment regardless of the presence or absence of the lexical pitch-accent contrast. These results have implications for the typology of the prosodic systems, for Intonational Phonology, and for phonetic implementation of phonological contrasts.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD

Lexical, Pragmatic and Positional Effects on Prosody in Two Dialects of Croatian and Serbian: An Acoustic Study

203 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2002.Briefly, the results of the acoustic studies conducted show that there is a difference between the two dialects in their phonological properties: as mentioned, the Belgrade dialect has a pitch-accent and vowel length contrast while the Zagreb dialect does not. Lexical pitch-accent and vowel length contrasts are found to influence the expression of pragmatic focus: the phonemic contrasts are enlarged in narrow focus. Tonal crowding in the phrase-final positions additionally affects tonal alignment regardless of the presence or absence of the lexical pitch-accent contrast. These results have implications for the typology of the prosodic systems, for Intonational Phonology, and for phonetic implementation of phonological contrasts.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD

Effects of Speech Clarity on Recognition Memory for Spoken Sentences

Extensive research shows that inter-talker variability (i.e., changing the talker) affects recognition memory for speech signals. However, relatively little is known about the consequences of intra-talker variability (i.e. changes in speaking style within a talker) on the encoding of speech signals in memory. It is well established that speakers can modulate the characteristics of their own speech and produce a listener-oriented, intelligibility-enhancing speaking style in response to communication demands (e.g., when speaking to listeners with hearing impairment or non-native speakers of the language). Here we conducted two experiments to examine the role of speaking style variation in spoken language processing. First, we examined the extent to which clear speech provided benefits in challenging listening environments (i.e. speech-in-noise). Second, we compared recognition memory for sentences produced in conversational and clear speaking styles. In both experiments, semantically normal and anomalous sentences were included to investigate the role of higher-level linguistic information in the processing of speaking style variability. The results show that acoustic-phonetic modifications implemented in listener-oriented speech lead to improved speech recognition in challenging listening conditions and, crucially, to a substantial enhancement in recognition memory for sentences.Linguistic

Differences in the association between segment and language:Early bilinguals pattern with monolinguals and are less accurate than late bilinguals

Early bilinguals often show as much sensitivity to L2-specific contrasts as monolingual speakers of the L2, but most work on cross-language speech perception has focused on isolated segments, and typically only on neighboring vowels or stop contrasts. In tasks that include sounds in context, listeners’ success is more variable, so segment discrimination in isolation may not adequately represent the phonetic detail in stored representations. The current study explores the relationship between language experience and sensitivity to segmental cues in context by comparing the categorization patterns of monolingual English listeners and early and late Spanish–English bilinguals. Participants categorized nonce words containing different classes of English- and Spanish-specific sounds as being more English-like or more Spanish-like; target segments included phonemic cues, cues for which there is no analogous sound in the other language, or phonetic cues, cues for which English and Spanish share the category but for which each language varies in its phonetic implementation. Listeners’ language categorization accuracy and reaction times were analyzed. Our results reveal a largely uniform categorization pattern across listener groups: Spanish cues were categorized more accurately than English cues, and phonemic cues were easier for listeners to categorize than phonetic cues. There were no differences in the sensitivity of monolinguals and early bilinguals to language-specific cues, suggesting that the early bilinguals’ exposure to Spanish did not fundamentally change their representations of English phonology. However, neither did the early bilinguals show more sensitivity than the monolinguals to Spanish sounds. The late bilinguals however, were significantly more accurate than either of the other groups. These findings indicate that listeners with varying exposure to English and Spanish are able to use language-specific cues in a nonce-word language categorization task. Differences in how, and not only when, a language was acquired may influence listener sensitivity to more difficult cues, and the advantage for phonemic cues may reflect the greater salience of categories unique to each language. Implications for foreign-accent categorization and cross-language speech perception are discussed, and future directions are outlined to better understand how salience varies across language-specific phonemic and phonetic cues

The effect of speaking style adaptations on speech perception in noise by native and non-native listeners

It is well established that non-native listeners perform worse on speech perception in noise tasks compared to native listeners. In this study, we examined word recognition of conversational, clear (CS) and noise-adapted (NAS) sentences mixed with speech shaped noise (SSN) and competing speech (two-talker (2T) babble) for native and non-native listeners. Our results revealed that CS and NAS significantly improved word recognition in noise for both listener groups, although the gains were substantially greater for native listeners. Native listeners were better able to utilize the intelligibility-enhancing speaking style modifications. Word recognition was overall better in 2T babble than in SSN. This suggests that competing speech containing two talkers is less disruptive and allows “glimpsing” windows through which the target speech could become more easily accessible compared to SSN.Linguistic

Results of the linear mixed effects logistic regression on intelligibility data for all sentences.

<p>Results of the linear mixed effects logistic regression on intelligibility data for all sentences.</p