Contextual information in (non-)native speech perception in noise

Abstract

Non-native listeners’ perception of speech has been shown to be more adversely affected by interference from background noise than native speakers. This study focused on effects of different levels of linguistic information on speech perception in noise. We examined roles of phonetic and contextual cues in sentence perception in babble noise by Chinese learners and native speakers of English. Our sentences varied in degrees of syntactic and semantic acceptability. Results revealed similar patterns of perception in the performance of listener groups. Secondly, listeners benefited more from certain sentence types under different listening conditions.