Schafer Erin C, Aoyama Katsura, Ho Tiffany, Castillo Priscilla, Conlin Jennifer, Jones Jessalyn, Thompson Skyler
Department of Audiology & Speech-Language Pathology, University of North Texas, Denton, TX.
J Am Acad Audiol. 2018 Nov/Dec;29(10):885-897. doi: 10.3766/jaaa.17066.
Speech recognition of individuals who are listening to a nonnative language is significantly degraded in the presence of background noise and may be influenced by proficiency, age of acquisition, language experience, and daily use of the nonnative language.
The purpose of this study is to examine and compare speech recognition in noise performance across test conditions with varying signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) as well as the presence of vocal and spatial cues in listeners who speak American English as a native language or Mandarin Chinese as a native language. Self-rated English proficiency and experience were collected for native Mandarin Chinese speakers to determine its relationship to performance on the test measures.
A cross-sectional repeated measures design was used for the study.
Four groups of participants were included in the study. The adult groups consisted of 25 adults who speak native English and 25 adults who speak native Mandarin Chinese with English as an additional language. The pediatric groups consisted of 16 children who speak native English and 16 children who speak native Mandarin Chinese with English as an additional language.
Percent correct speech recognition in noise was assessed at three SNRs (-3, 0, +3 dB) using the adult or pediatric versions of the AzBio sentence test. The Listening in Spatialized Noise-Sentence (LiSN-S) test was used to determine the effect of providing spatial and vocal cues on the speech recognition in noise performance of the groups of participants. The data for each age group and test measure were analyzed with a repeated measures analysis of variance. Correlation analyses were performed to examine relationships between English proficiency and experience on performance across the speech recognition test conditions.
Analysis of the data from the adult or pediatric AzBio sentence test identified a significant effect of native language for adults but no significant effect for children. The higher SNRs yielded better performance for all listeners. On the LiSN-S test, results for the adult and pediatric groups were similar and showed significantly better performance for the native English speakers in every test condition. The demographic and language characteristics that most affected speech recognition performance across the test measures included the length of time the person lived in the United States, the age of English acquisition, the number of minutes per day English was spoken by the participant, and the self-rated English proficiency.
The findings in this study highlight the importance and benefit of higher SNRs as well as the provision of vocal and spatial cues for improving speech recognition performance in noise of adult and pediatric listeners who speak Mandarin Chinese as a native language.
在存在背景噪声的情况下，听非母语语言的个体的语音识别能力会显著下降，并且可能受到熟练程度、习得年龄、语言经验以及非母语语言的日常使用情况的影响。
本研究的目的是检查和比较在不同信噪比（SNR）的测试条件下以及在以美式英语为母语或以汉语普通话为母语的听众中存在声音和空间线索时的噪声中语音识别性能。收集了以汉语普通话为母语的人的自评英语熟练程度和经验，以确定其与测试指标表现之间的关系。
本研究采用横断面重复测量设计。
研究纳入了四组参与者。成人组包括25名以英语为母语的成年人和25名以汉语普通话为母语且将英语作为附加语言的成年人。儿童组包括16名以英语为母语的儿童和16名以汉语普通话为母语且将英语作为附加语言的儿童。
使用成人版或儿童版的AzBio句子测试，在三个信噪比（-3、0、+3 dB）下评估噪声中正确语音识别的百分比。使用空间化噪声中的句子听力（LiSN-S）测试来确定提供空间和声音线索对参与者组噪声中语音识别性能的影响。对每个年龄组和测试指标的数据进行重复测量方差分析。进行相关分析以检查英语熟练程度和经验与语音识别测试条件下表现之间的关系。
对成人或儿童AzBio句子测试数据的分析表明，母语对成年人有显著影响，但对儿童没有显著影响。较高的信噪比使所有听众的表现更好。在LiSN-S测试中，成人组和儿童组的结果相似，并且在每种测试条件下，以英语为母语的人表现明显更好。在所有测试指标中，对语音识别性能影响最大的人口统计学和语言特征包括该人在美国居住的时间长度、英语习得年龄、参与者每天说英语的分钟数以及自评英语熟练程度。
本研究的结果突出了较高信噪比以及提供声音和空间线索对于提高以汉语普通话为母语的成人和儿童听众在噪声中的语音识别性能的重要性和益处。
