Similarity and familiarity: Second language sentence recognition in first- and second-language multi-talker babble

The intelligibility of speech in noisy environments depends not only on the functionality of listeners’ peripheral auditory systems, but also on cognitive factors such as their language learning experience. Previous studies have shown, for example, that normal-hearing listeners attending to a non-native language have more difficulty in identifying speech targets in noisy conditions than do native listeners. Furthermore, native listeners have more difficulty in understanding speech targets in the presence of speech noise in their native language versus a foreign language. The present study addresses the role of listeners’ experience with both the target and noise languages by examining second-language sentence recognition in first- and second-language noise. Native English speakers and non-native English speakers whose native language is Mandarin were tested on English sentence recognition in English and Mandarin 2-talker babble. Results show that both listener groups experienced greater difficulty in English versus Mandarin babble, but that native Mandarin listeners experienced a smaller release from masking in Mandarin babble relative to English babble. These results indicate that both the similarity between the target and noise and the language experience of the listeners contribute to the amount of interference listeners experience when listening to speech in the presence of speech noise.