Listeners manage to acquire the sounds of their native language in spite of experiencing a range of acoustic conditions during acquisition, including the presence of noise. Is the same true for non-native sound acquisition? This study investigates whether the presence of masking noise during consonant training is a barrier to improvement, or, conversely, whether noise can be beneficial. Spanish learners identified English consonants with and without noise, before and after undergoing one of four extensive training regimes in which they were exposed to either consonants or vowels in the presence or absence of speech-shaped noise. The consonant-trained cohorts showed substantially larger gains than the vowel-trained groups, regardless of whether they were trained in noise or quiet. A small matched-condition benefit was evident, with noise-training resulting in larger improvements when testing in noise, and vice versa for training in quiet. No evidence for habituation to noise was observed: the cohort trained on vowels in noise showed no transference to consonants in noise. These findings demonstrate that noise exposure does not impede the acquisition of second language sounds.
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May 02 2018
Effects of exposure to noise during perceptual training of non-native language sounds
Martin Cooke;
Martin Cooke
a)
1
Ikerbasque (Basque Science Foundation)
, Bilbao, Spain
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Maria Luisa Garcia Lecumberri
Maria Luisa Garcia Lecumberri
2
Language and Speech Laboratory, Universidad del País Vasco
, 01006 Vitoria, Spain
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a)
Electronic mail: m.cooke@ikerbasque.org
J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 143, 2602–2610 (2018)
Article history
Received:
January 09 2018
Accepted:
April 12 2018
Citation
Martin Cooke, Maria Luisa Garcia Lecumberri; Effects of exposure to noise during perceptual training of non-native language sounds. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 1 May 2018; 143 (5): 2602–2610. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.5035080
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