Mapping accent similarity and speech in noise intelligibility for British English accents

Abstract

Previous work has suggested that the recognition of speech in noise is affected by the accent similarity of the speaker and listener, as well as by the familiarity of the speaker’s accent. The present study investigated this further by constructing multidimensional accent maps for British English speakers, as well as a small group of general American speakers, and examining how intelligibility within this space varied for listeners with different British English accents. The preliminary results suggest that speakers who have a central position in the accent space are most intelligible in noise, and that speakers with standard accents tend to occupy this central position. This implies that some aspects of speech intelligibility may be explained by the prototypicality of speakers within the broader accent space.