Room acoustic effects on English speech comprehension varies for native and non-native listeners

What is it about?

We investigated the effects of background noise level, reverberation time, and talker foreign accent on native and non-native listeners’ speech comprehension, while controlling for English language abilities. Results show that, while higher background noise levels were generally more detrimental to listeners with lower English proficiency, all listeners experienced significant comprehension deficits above ~48 dBA with native English talkers. This limit was lower (above ~38 dBA), however, when the English speech was presented by native Chinese talkers. For reverberation, nonnative listeners as a group performed best with reverberation times up to 0.6 s, while native listeners performed equally well up to 1.2 s. A matched foreign accent benefit has also been identified, where the negative impact of higher reverberation does not exist for non-native listeners who share the talker’s native language.

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Photo by MChe Lee on Unsplash

Photo by MChe Lee on Unsplash

Why is it important?

A large number of non-native English speakers may be found in American classrooms, both as listeners and talkers. Our results give guidance on how we should design acoustics in spaces such that the comprehension of English speech by non-native English talkers or heard by non-native English listeners is not impaired.

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