How room acoustics impact speech comprehension by listeners with varying English proficiency levels

Abstract

The authors previously reported the preliminary results from an investigation on effects of reverberation and noise on speech comprehension by native and non-native English-speaking listeners at ICA, Montreal. The results showed significant main effects of reverberation time (from 0.4 to 1.2 s) and background noise level (three settings of RC-30, 40, and 50). Non-native listeners performed significantly worse than natives on speech comprehension in general. Furthermore, the negative effect of reverberation was more detrimental for non-native than for native English-speaking listeners. However, the preliminary analyses have not yet accounted for effects of English proficiency on speech comprehension in addition to the room acoustic environments tested. All test participants were screened for three measures of English proficiency (listening span, oral comprehension, and verbal abilities). Non-native listeners as a group scored lower on all three proficiency measures than native English-speaking listeners. In this paper, English proficiency is investigated as confounding factor affecting speech comprehension performance alongside noise and reverberation. The results help to further the understanding of how room acoustics impacts speech comprehension by listeners, native and non-native English-speaking, with varying English proficiency levels. [Work supported by a UNL Durham School Seed Grant and the Paul S. Veneklasen Research Foundation.]