English-speaking Listeners Research Articles

Socialising the Frequency Code: Effects of gender and age on iconic associations of pitcha).

Burgeoning research has shown the pervasiveness of sound symbolism, a type of iconicity, in language. However, little work looks at how individual experiences and beliefs affect sound symbolic associations. We investigate pitch associations under the Frequency Code, which links high vs low pitch to small vs large body size and female vs male gender (via sexual dimorphism), long claimed to underlie "universal" meanings like submissiveness vs dominance. While such associations appear widespread, the Frequency Code assumes ideological links, e.g., between dominance and masculinity, which differ between individuals and cultures. In Implicit Association Task experiments with English-speaking listeners, we show high pitch is implicitly associated with small size and female gender, and low with large and male, following the Frequency Code. Crucially, though, the strength of these associations varies by social factors. Associations are stronger for male voices and listeners, particularly older men, as ideologies related to the Frequency Code (linking large size, strength, and dominance) tend to be stronger for men. The association of pitch with gender is stronger than with body size, reflecting stronger gender-based stereotypes. This work shows that social experience shapes and reinforces iconic associations, with important implications for how iconic meanings develop and are processed.

Predicting this rock: Listeners use redundant phonetic information in online morphosyntactic processing

Pronunciation variation is systematic, and provides listeners with cues to what the speaker is about to say. Shortened stems, for example, can indicate an upcoming suffix, while lengthened ones can indicate a word boundary follows. Previous work has shown that listeners draw on these cues to distinguish polysyllabic words, like rocket, from monosyllabic words, like rock. This strategy is useful in morphological processing, as additional morphological structure often adds additional syllables. The current study asks (i) whether listeners use these cues to distinguish words that differ only in morphological structure with no change in syllable count (e.g., rock/rocks); and (ii) how surrounding morphosyntactic context affects listeners’ ability to use these cues. Ideal observer models predict that listeners should be attentive to phonetic detail in all contexts regardless of how much new information it offers, while the strategic listener account allows listeners to dynamically adjust their attentiveness to phonetic detail based on its information value in context. In a visual-world eye-tracking study, English-speaking listeners were presented with utterances containing target nouns whose stem durations were manipulated to provide cues to the presence or absence of (a) a plural suffix (rock vs. rocks) or (b) a second, non-morphological syllable (rock vs. rocket). These words were embedded in two contexts: (i) preceded by agreeing determiners, which rendered stem duration cues redundant for predicting the presence or absence of a suffix (this rock/these rocks), and (ii) preceded by non-agreeing determiners (the rock(s)), where stem duration cues carried more information. The results are consistent with ideal observer models: listeners are highly attentive to all acoustic detail, and especially so when it is predictable (and hence redundant), as long as they have the cognitive resources to handle it.

The interacting effects of talker, contrast, and listener variability in cross-language speech perception.

Building on previous observations of variability in speech research, we examine variability in speech perception study materials associated with the specific talker and contrast under examination. English-speaking listeners completed a web-based auditory AXB task involving Hindi dental-retroflex stop contrasts produced by four talkers. Main effects of talker and contrast, as well as the interaction of the two, were observed. Further, there was a great deal of individual listener variation. These findings complicate our ability to characterize the difficulty that Hindi dental-retroflex contrasts pose for English speakers, and lead to critical questions concerning the generalizability of speech perception study findings.

Ham or hamster? Eye-tracking evidence of a clear speech benefit for word segmentation in quiet and in noise

ABSTRACT This study examined whether intelligibility-enhancing hyperarticulated clear speaking styles improve word segmentation during real-time speech processing in quiet and in noise. English-speaking listeners heard clearly and conversationally spoken sentences in which the target (e.g. ham) was temporarily ambiguous with a competitor (e.g. hamster) across a word boundary (e.g. ham starting) while their eye fixations to target and competitor images were recorded. Relative to conversational speech, clear speech led listeners to fixate the target image over the competitor image to a greater degree, indicating facilitation of word segmentation. Such facilitation emerged in quiet and in noise even before disambiguating segmental information (e.g. /ɑ/ in starting) was available. A parallel clear speech benefit was not found when the disyllabic word (e.g. hamster) was the target. The findings suggest that improved word segmentation partly underlies the well-documented clear speech perceptual and cognitive benefits and may arise from the enhancements of multiple word boundary cues.

Used to Be a Dime, Now It's a Dollar: Revised Speech Perception in Noise Key Word Predictability Revisited 40 Years On.

Almost 40 years after its development, in this article, we reexamine the relevance and validity of the ubiquitously used Revised Speech Perception in Noise (R-SPiN) sentence corpus. The R-SPiN corpus includes "high-context" and "low-context" sentences and has been widely used in the field of hearing research to examine the benefit derived from semantic context across English-speaking listeners, but research investigating age differences has yielded somewhat inconsistent findings. We assess the appropriateness of the corpus for use today in different English-language cultures (i.e., British and American) as well as for older and younger adults. Two hundred forty participants, including older (60-80 years) and younger (19-31 years) adult groups in the the United Kingdom and United States, completed a cloze task consisting of R-SPiN sentences with the final word removed. Cloze, as a measure of predictability, and entropy, as a measure of response uncertainty, were compared between culture and age groups. Most critically, of the 200 "high-context" stimuli, only around half were assessed as highly predictable for older adults (United Kingdom: 109; United States: 107); and fewer still, for younger adults (United Kingdom: 75; United States: 81). We also found dominant responses to these "high-context" stimuli varied between cultures, with U.S. responses being more likely to match the original R-SPiN target. Our findings highlight the issue of incomplete transferability of corpus items across English-language cultures as well as diminished equivalency for older and younger adults. By identifying relevant items for each population, this work could facilitate the interpretation of inconsistent findings in the literature, particularly relating to age effects.

Second Language Learners Listening to their Peers: Is There a Shared L1 Effect for L2 Comprehensibility and Accentedness?

Abstract Previous research on the perception of second-language speech has suggested that non-native listeners may benefit from sharing the speakers’ first language, e.g. speakers of Spanish find Spanish-accented English easy to understand. In the present study, L2 English speech samples elicited from L1 Finnish and L1 Finland-Swedish speakers were rated for comprehensibility and accentedness by English-speaking listeners and the speakers’ peers, seeking to explore whether there is a difference between the listener groups. In addition, the speakers’ overall spoken proficiency (A2, B1, B2 on the CEFR scale) was considered in the analysis to find out if the possible shared L1 effect is connected to the speakers’ proficiency. The results were mixed, finding that L1 Finland-Swedish listeners were more lenient towards their peers’ English than the English-speaking listeners were, whereas L1 Finnish listeners gave comprehensibility ratings equal to those given by English-speaking listeners, and accentedness ratings that were stricter. The finding supports earlier suggestions on the effects of sharing the speakers’ L1 for L2 speech perception being L1 dependent. As for the influence of the speakers’ proficiency, the results demonstrate a greater difference between English-speaking listeners and listeners who share the speakers’ L1 regarding low-proficiency speakers.

Nikolay Myaskovsky: A Composer and His Times by Patrick Zuk

Reviewed by: Nikolay Myaskovsky: A Composer and His Times by Patrick Zuk Anthony Gritten Zuk, Patrick. Nikolay Myaskovsky: A Composer and His Times. The Boydell Press, Woodbridge and Rochester, NY, 2021. xlvii + 533 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Music examples. Notes. Appendices. Bibliography. Indexes. £60.00; £19.99 (e-book): $99.00; $24.99 (e-book). This huge book sets itself three huge tasks: to introduce Miaskovskii's music and life to English-speaking listeners; to rehabilitate his reputation in the musical West; and to situate him in relation to the discourse of Socialist Realism. These three tasks it fulfils with care, thoroughness and plenty of musical insight. This weighty tome is well worth the cost. Miaskovskii's music is still largely unknown in English-speaking music circles; unknown rather than forgotten, despite the work done on CDs by performers. This speaks to the dominance of a certain set of assumptions [End Page 755] about what music — particularly instrumental symphonic music — should do, be, express and tell us. Miaskovskii's music, one might read between the lines, tells us things about ourselves in relation to our musical traditions and our pat assumptions that might be uncomfortable to ponder — about what self-expression is, what public artistic communication might be, about the limits of public debate through art, and so on. And if the Soviet era was a set of times and places in which these sorts of topics were not debated transparently and equitably but certainly were subject to discussion, then it might be concluded from this new book that Miaskovskii's music and his life each provide litmus tests for what music qua public art was, is, and might be. Miaskovskii's own reputation has existed until now in the West largely in relation to the discourse of Socialist Realism (and in relation to histories of the symphony). This book does a lot to disentangle his reputation from his political milieu — or at least, to show where they run parallel but are not the same thing. Zuk's evidence consists of a deep immersion in the music and a huge trawl of the composer's correspondence and a wealth of other archival sources, many of which remain unpublished and untranslated. His narrative sets aside space for several things: patient analyses of works that highlight the musical challenges that Miaskovskii set himself; details of the contexts that we need to acknowledge in relation to his choice of texts when these seem at first glance not to be those demanded by the regime; pertinent comparisons with works by relevant predecessors (Chaikovskii looms large, of course; pp. 54–55, 80, 85–86, 105, 180, 219, 419, 455); and, perhaps most challenging for a musicological study on this scale, an assessment of the ways in which Miaskovskii's works and performances might be judged today. Zuk is not afraid to make value judgements about specific works, and these will be a helpful start to anybody following him into the music. Thus, the Sixth Symphony is rated highly, as are the Thirteenth, Twenty-First, and Twenty-Seventh (p. 455), whereas the Second is criticized in detail. Similarly, the Second Cello Sonata is rated more highly than the Violin Sonata (p. 454). Zuk dismisses Soviet biographies of the composer for axe grinding and lacking correct information, and he writes at length about how various works were only tangentially or problematically examples of Socialist Realism (e.g. pp. 388–89, 434). He also provides detailed explanations of why Miaskovskii's creative responses to Socialist Realist doctrine — dictats that were nervously defined and individually self-justifying — need to be evaluated individually in relation to each separate work. Socialist Realism evolved chaotically, and so did the ways in which it was evaluated in public by those in power, as with, for example, the events of January 1948 during which Miaskovskii seems to have received the lion's share of the blame for the wider problems of a whole generation of composers, possibly for the simple reason that he had taught [End Page 756] many of them (pp. 436–37), but probably also because he had been the recipient of several Stalin prizes, which probably created jealousy and accusations of...

Disentangling professional competence and foreign accent

Abstract This study examined listeners’ evaluations of first (L1) and second language (L2) English speech in work-related contexts. Ninety-six English-speaking listeners from Calgary rated audio recordings of 12 English speakers (6 L1 English, 6 L1 Tagalog) along three continua capturing one professional (competence), one experiential (treatment preference), and one linguistic (comprehensibility) dimension. The audio recordings additionally differed in terms of job prestige (high vs. low) and performance level (high vs. low). Compared to English speakers, Tagalog speakers were rated as less competent and comprehensible overall, and listeners wished to be treated more like the clients in scenarios recorded by English than Tagalog speakers, with all effects magnified for speakers with heavier foreign accents. Nonetheless, listeners generally evaluated English and Tagalog speakers similarly in low-prestige and in low-performance scenarios, but rated low performance less negatively in low-prestige positions. Findings demonstrate highly nuanced accent bias in work-related contexts.

Development and Evaluation of a Language-Independent Test of Auditory Discrimination for Referrals for Cochlear Implant Candidacy Assessment.

Objectives:The purpose of this study was to (1) develop a Language-independent Test of Auditory Discrimination (LIT-AD) between speech sounds so that people with hearing loss who derive limited speech perception benefits from hearing aids (HAs) may be identified for consideration of cochlear implantation and (2) examine the relationship between the scores for the new discrimination test and those of a standard sentence test for adults wearing either HAs or cochlear implants (CIs).Design:The test measures the ability of the listener to correctly discriminate pairs of nonsense syllables, presented as sequential triplets in an odd-one-out format, implemented as a game-based software tool for self-administration using a tablet computer. Stage 1 included first a review of phonemic inventories in the 40 most common languages in the world to select the consonants and vowels. Second, discrimination testing of 50 users of CIs at several signal to noise ratios (SNRs) was carried out to generate psychometric functions. These were used to calculate the corrections in SNR for each consonant-pair and vowel combination required to equalize difficulty across items. Third, all items were individually equalized in difficulty and the overall difficulty set. Stage 2 involved the validation of the LIT-AD in English-speaking listeners by comparing discrimination scores with performance in a standard sentence test. Forty-one users of HAs and 40 users of CIs were assessed. Correlation analyses were conducted to examine test–retest reliability and the relationship between performance in the two tests. Multiple regression analyses were used to examine the relationship between demographic characteristics and performance in the LIT-AD. The scores of the CI users were used to estimate the probability of superior performance with CIs for a non-CI user having a given LIT-AD score and duration of hearing loss.Results:The LIT-AD comprises 81 pairs of vowel–consonant–vowel syllables that were equalized in difficulty to discriminate. The test can be self-administered on a tablet computer, and it takes about 10 min to complete. The software automatically scores the responses and gives an overall score and a list of confusable items as output. There was good test–retest reliability. On average, higher LIT-AD discrimination scores were associated with better sentence perception for users of HAs (r = −0.54, p <0.001) and users of CIs (r = −0.73, p <0.001). The probability of superior performance with CIs for a certain LIT-AD score was estimated, after allowing for the effect of duration of hearing loss.Conclusions:The LIT-AD could increase access to CIs by screening for those who obtain limited benefits from HAs to facilitate timely referrals for CI candidacy evaluation. The test results can be used to provide patients and professionals with practical information about the probability of potential benefits for speech perception from cochlear implantation. The test will need to be evaluated for speakers of languages other than English to facilitate adoption in different countries.

Manipulating listener attitudes toward accented talkers influences speech perception

We previously demonstrated that listeners' attitudes toward talkers with foreign accents is related to listeners' ability to perceive foreign-accented speech. In this study, we sought to determine if listeners' attitudes toward talkers with foreign accents are malleable and, if so, whether changing listeners' attitudes toward talkers with foreign accents would change the strength of the relationship between listeners' attitudes and listeners' speech perception accuracy. Specifically, we hypothesized that supporting listeners’ biases regarding non-native speech would lead to better speech perception performance. To test this hypothesis, we created short vignettes that either conformed to or violated listeners’ biases regarding non-native talkers. Native English-speaking listeners rated and transcribed speech produced by native and non-native English speakers. Half of the listeners read the vignette prior to rating the speech, half received no information about the talkers; vignettes were randomly paired with talkers. Contrary to our hypothesis, there was no effect of vignette type. Listeners rated non-native listeners as more accented and less likeable when vignettes were present. Interestingly, listeners were also more accurate transcribing speech by both native and non-native talkers when the vignettes were present.

Transient speech processing costs depend on accent type and talker variability

In a dual-task paradigm, native English-speaking listeners (N=55) made judgments about visually presented digits while simultaneously listening to speech that varied by talkers-per-accent (between-subjects: 1 vs 3) and accent type (within-subjects: native[Canadian]/regional[Australian]/nonnative[Mandarin]). Adaptation occurred within only six exposures but was only observed for nonnative and native-accented speech (p &amp;lt; 0.05) and was also dependent on talkers-per-accent, indicating that transient speech processing demands are uniquely impacted by the interactions between accent type and talker variability.

The effects of lecturers’ non-native accent strength in English on intelligibility and attitudinal evaluations by native and non-native English students

The rapid spread of English medium instruction (EMI) across the globe has led to a growing number of non-native lecturers teaching in English to student populations that are increasingly international. The aim of the present study was to investigate to what extent lecturers with slight or moderate Dutch accents or native British English accents are evaluated differently in terms of intelligibility, comprehensibility and attitudinal impressions by non-native and native English-speaking listeners. In an experiment, 189 Dutch listeners, 175 international non-native listeners and 158 native English listeners evaluated fragments recorded by moderately accented Dutch, slightly accented Dutch and native English speakers. Findings showed that the moderately non-native accented lecturers were evaluated more negatively than lecturers with slight or native accents by both Dutch and international non-native listeners, but not by native English listeners. This suggests that non-native listeners evaluate the accents of non-native lecturers according to native speaker pronunciation norms.

Tonal Language Speakers Are Better Able to Segregate Competing Speech According to Talker Sex Differences.

Purpose The aim of this study was to compare release from masking (RM) between Mandarin-speaking and English-speaking listeners with normal hearing for competing speech when target-masker sex cues, spatial cues, or both were available. Method Speech recognition thresholds (SRTs) for competing speech were measured in 21 Mandarin-speaking and 15 English-speaking adults with normal hearing using a modified coordinate response measure task. SRTs were measured for target sentences produced by a male talker in the presence of two masker talkers (different male talkers or female talkers). The target sentence was always presented directly in front of the listener, and the maskers were either colocated with the target or were spatially separated from the target (+90°, -90°). Stimuli were presented via headphones and were virtually spatialized using head-related transfer functions. Three masker conditions were used to measure RM relative to the baseline condition: (a) talker sex cues, (b) spatial cues, or (c) combined talker sex and spatial cues. Results The results showed large amounts of RM according to talker sex and/or spatial cues. There was no significant difference in SRTs between Chinese and English listeners for the baseline condition, where no talker sex or spatial cues were available. Furthermore, there was no significant difference in RM between Chinese and English listeners when spatial cues were available. However, RM was significantly larger for Chinese listeners when talker sex cues or combined talker sex and spatial cues were available. Conclusion Listeners who speak a tonal language such as Mandarin Chinese may be able to take greater advantage of talker sex cues than listeners who do not speak a tonal language.

Lexical ambiguity and acoustic distance in discrimination

This work presents a perceptual study on how acoustic details and knowledge of the lexicon influence discrimination decisions. English-speaking listeners were less likely to identify phonologically matching items as the same when they differed in vowel duration, but differences in mean F0 did not have an effect. Although both are components of English contrasts, the results only provide evidence for attention to vowel duration as a potentially contrastive cue. Lexical ambiguity was a predictor of response time. Pairs with matching duration were identified more quickly than pairs with distinct duration, but only among lexically ambiguous items, indicating that lexical ambiguity mediates attention to acoustic detail. Lexical ambiguity also interacted with neighborhood density: Among lexically unambiguous words, the proportion of 'same' responses decreased with neighborhood density, but there was no effect among lexically ambiguous words. This interaction suggests that evaluating phonological similarity depends more on lexical information when the items are lexically unambiguous.

The role of talker variability in the perceptual learning of Mandarin tones by American English listeners

Abstract Research on segmentals has suggested that a key component of High Variability Phonetic Training (HVPT) is high talker variability. However, the extent to which high talker variability improves perception of tones is unclear. This study examined the effects of high talker variability on the perception of Mandarin tones (Tones 1–4) by English-speaking listeners. A training paradigm that used multiple talkers (multitalker group) was compared with a paradigm that used one talker (single-talker group). The results showed that the multitalker group outperformed the single-talker group, and they retained their learning better than the single-talker group did for 6 months. Neither group, however, improved their perception of Tone 1 or generalized their learning of monosyllables to disyllables. The results suggest that although high talker variability can effectively improve tone perception, it does not improve the perception of more tone categories or yield generalization of learning to more contexts compared to low talker variability.

The development of the listening in spatialised noise – universal test (LiSN-U) and preliminary evaluation in English-speaking listeners

Objective: To create a language independent version of the Listening in Spatialised Noise – Sentences test (LiSN-S) and evaluate it in an English-speaking population.Design: Test development and normative data collection. LiSN-Universal (LiSN-U) targets consisted of CVCV pseudo-words (e.g. /mupa/). Two looped distracter tracks consisted of CVCVCVCV pseudo-words. The listener’s task was to repeat back the target pseudo-words. Stimuli were presented over headphones using an iPad. Speech reception thresholds were measured adaptively. In the co-located condition all stimuli came from directly in front. In the spatially-separated condition the distracters emanated from +90° and −90° azimuth. Perceived location was manipulated using head-related transfer functions. Spatial advantage was calculated as the difference in dB between the co-located and spatially separated conditions.Study samples: Stimulus intelligibility data were collected from 20 adults. Normative data were collected from native English speakers (23 adults and 127 children).Results: Children’s spatially separated, co-located, and spatial advantage results improved significantly with age. Spatial advantage was 4–6 dB larger in the LiSN-U than LiSN-S depending on age group.Conclusion: Whereas additional research in non-native English populations is required, the LiSN-U appears to be an effective tool for measuring spatial processing ability.

Effects of formant proximity and stimulus prototypicality on the neural discrimination of vowels: Evidence from the auditory frequency-following response

Cross-language speech perception experiments indicate that for many vowel contrasts, discrimination is easier when the same pair of vowels is presented in one direction compared to the reverse direction. According to one account, these directional asymmetries reflect a universal bias favoring “focal” vowels (i.e., vowels with prominent spectral peaks formed by the convergence of adjacent formants). An alternative account is that such effects reflect an experience-dependent bias favoring prototypical exemplars of native-language vowel categories. Here, we tested the predictions of these accounts by recording the auditory frequency-following response in English-speaking listeners to two synthetic variants of the vowel /u/ that differed in the proximity of their first and second formants and prototypicality, with stimuli arranged in oddball and reversed-oddball blocks. Participants showed evidence of neural discrimination when the more-focal/less-prototypic /u/ served as the deviant stimulus, but not when the less-focal/more-prototypic /u/ served as the deviant, consistent with the focalization account.

Can kiwis and koalas as cultural primes induce perceptual bias in Australian English speaking listeners?

The presence of culturally significant objects has been shown to induce biases in speech perception consistent with features of the dialect relevant to the object. Questions remain about the transferability of this effect to different dialect contexts, and the efficacy of the task in inducing the effect. This paper details an Australian-context experiment modelled on Hay and Drager’s (2010) New Zealand-context stuffed toy study. Seventy-five listeners heard spoken Australian English (AusE) phrases with phrase-final monosyllabic words containing either kit, dress, or trap vowels. Each phrase was followed by audio presentation of a six-step synthesized vowel continuum, from New Zealand English (NZE)-like to exaggerated AusE-like tokens. Listeners attempted to match one of the synthesized variants to the speaker’s realization of the target vowel. Listeners were exposed to one of two priming conditions, established by stuffed toy kiwis (New Zealand) and stuffed toy koalas (Australia), or a control condition (no toy). Contrary to Hay and Drager (2010), token selections did not differ significantly between the New Zealand and Australian priming conditions. However, reversing the order of continuum presentation did significantly affect token selection for kit vowels, raising questions about the task design itself. Results suggest that the influence of regional primes on speech perception may be more limited than previously thought.

Medical writing for non-native English speakers: Help for usage of articles

Many non-native English speakers, especially those whose mother language has no articles (like Slavic languages) make mistakes when they speak or write English. This may sound rather rough to English-speaking listeners or readers. To improve their command of the language and the usage of articles, individuals for whom English is a second language should review the usage of articles from time to time. We prepared a short text on this subject and also included exercises from the medical publications.

SOCIAL ATTITUDES AND SPEECH RATINGS

AbstractThis study examined whether social bias manipulation can influence how naïve multiage listeners evaluate second language (L2) speech. Sixty native English-speaking listeners (Montreal residents) rated audio recordings of 40 Quebec French speakers of L2 English for five dimensions of oral performance (accentedness, comprehensibility, segmental accuracy, intonation, flow) using 1,000-point continuous scales. Immediately before rating, 20 listeners heard critical comments about Quebec French speakers’ English language skills, while 20 heard positive comments. Twenty listeners (baseline group) received no manipulation. Compared to baseline listeners, positively oriented listeners (younger and older) rated four of five dimensions more favorably. However, listeners’ behavior diverged under negative bias. Compared to age-matched baseline listeners, younger listeners upgraded speakers while older listeners downgraded speakers for all targeted measures. Findings cast doubt on the relative stability of L2 speech ratings and point to the importance of social context and generational differences in untrained rater assessments of L2 speaking performance.