Effect of room acoustics on speech intelligibility under noise between native and non-native listeners

Abstract

The current study investigates the effect of room acoustics on the perception of speech between native and non-native listeners of English. The study particularly focuses on how the benefit of spatial release from masking (SRM) is affected by room acoustics for the different listener groups. The result of subjective listening test shows that SRM is observed both from native and non-native listeners, however the drop in the speech intelligibility is more significant in the non-native listeners when the sound sources are located farther away from the listener.