Individual variation in the perception of different types of speech degradation

Abstract

Both environmental noise and talker-related variation (e.g., accented speech) can create adverse listening conditions for speech communication. Individuals recruit additional cognitive, linguistic, or perceptual resources when faced with such challenges, and they vary in their ability to understand degraded speech. However, it is unclear whether listeners employ the same additional resources when encountering different types of challenging listening conditions. In the present study, we compare individuals’ ability on a variety of skills —including vocabulary, selective attention, rhythm perception, and working memory—with transcription accuracy (i.e., intelligibility scores) of speech degraded by the addition of speech-shaped noise or multi-talker babble and/or talker variation (i.e., a non-native speaker). Initial analyses show that intelligibility scores across degradations of the same class (i.e., either environmental or talker-related) significantly correlate, but correlations of intelligibility score...