Bent Tessa, Baese-Berk Melissa, Borrie Stephanie A, McKee Megan
Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47405, USA.
Department of Linguistics, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon 97403, USA.
J Acoust Soc Am. 2016 Nov;140(5):3775. doi: 10.1121/1.4966677.
Speech perception abilities vary substantially across listeners, particularly in adverse conditions including those stemming from environmental degradation (e.g., noise) or from talker-related challenges (e.g., nonnative or disordered speech). This study examined adult listeners' recognition of words in phrases produced by six talkers representing three speech varieties: a nonnative accent (Spanish-accented English), a regional dialect (Irish English), and a disordered variety (ataxic dysarthria). Semantically anomalous phrases from these talkers were presented in a transcription task and intelligibility scores, percent words correct, were compared across the three speech varieties. Three cognitive-linguistic areas-receptive vocabulary, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control of attention-were assessed as possible predictors of individual word recognition performance. Intelligibility scores for the Spanish accent were significantly correlated with scores for the Irish English and ataxic dysarthria. Scores for the Irish English and dysarthric speech, in contrast, were not correlated. Furthermore, receptive vocabulary was the only cognitive-linguistic assessment that significantly predicted intelligibility scores. These results suggest that, rather than a global skill of perceiving speech that deviates from native dialect norms, listeners may possess specific abilities to overcome particular types of acoustic-phonetic deviation. Furthermore, vocabulary size offers performance benefits for intelligibility of speech that deviates from one's typical dialect norms.
言语感知能力在不同听众之间差异很大，尤其是在不利条件下，包括那些源于环境退化（如噪音）或与说话者相关的挑战（如非母语或言语障碍）的情况。本研究考察了成年听众对由代表三种言语变体的六位说话者说出的短语中的单词的识别能力：一种非母语口音（西班牙口音的英语）、一种地区方言（爱尔兰英语）和一种言语障碍变体（共济失调性构音障碍）。在一项转录任务中呈现了来自这些说话者的语义异常短语，并比较了三种言语变体的可懂度得分，即正确单词的百分比。评估了三个认知语言领域——接受性词汇、认知灵活性和注意力抑制控制——作为个体单词识别表现的可能预测因素。西班牙口音的可懂度得分与爱尔兰英语和共济失调性构音障碍的得分显著相关。相比之下，爱尔兰英语和构音障碍言语的得分没有相关性。此外，接受性词汇是唯一能显著预测可懂度得分的认知语言评估。这些结果表明，听众可能拥有克服特定类型的声学语音偏差的特定能力，而不是一种感知偏离本地方言规范的言语的全局技能。此外，词汇量大小对偏离个人典型方言规范的言语可懂度有提高作用。
