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This study examines listening effort, as indexed by pupil dilation, needed for processing foreign-accented speech that varies in intelligibility. Previous research has shown that the magnitude of pupil dilation is influenced by various factors, crucially the amount of noise added to speech. However, the method has not yet been used to examine foreign-accented speech. Here, we determine if the full range of foreign accent intelligibility induces a similar increase in cognitive processing effort as that seen for speech in noise. Further, we examine whether listener experience with the accent mitigates this increase in cognitive effort. The results indicate that as speech becomes less intelligible due to accent, pupil dilation increases. Additionally, experience not only reduces the overall magnitude of pupil dilation, it shifts the threshold at which decreased intelligibility begins to incur additional processing effort. We discuss the present results in terms of listening effort when processing spoken variability. The present study establishes pupillometry as an informative method for investigating the processing demands associated with foreign-accented speech.

The use of orthographic and phonological information in spoken word recognition was studied in a visual world task where L1 Finnish learners of L2 French (n = 64) and L1 French native speakers (n = 24) were asked to match spoken word forms with printed words while their eye movements were recorded. In Experiment 1, French target words were contrasted with competitors having a longer ( vs. ) or a shorter word initial phonological overlap ( vs. ) and an identical orthographic overlap. In Experiment 2, target words were contrasted with competitors of either longer ( vs. ) or shorter word initial orthographic overlap ( vs. ) and of an identical phonological overlap. A general phonological effect was observed in the L2 listener group but not in the L1 control group. No general orthographic effects were observed in the L2 or L1 groups, but a significant effect of proficiency was observed for orthographic overlap over time: higher proficiency L2 listeners used also orthographic information in the matching task in a time-window from 400 to 700 ms, whereas no such effect was observed for lower proficiency listeners. These results suggest that the activation of orthographic information in L2 spoken word recognition depends on proficiency in L2.

Is it possible that silent reading rate is the same as the most efficient listening rate? The hypothesis has been formulated in the past, but never got much traction because silent reading is almost twice as fast as typical speech. On the other hand, several studies have shown that listening comprehension retains high quality for spoken materials presented at speeds up to 275 words per minute (wpm), and a recent meta-analysis has also shown that reading rate is lower than often thought: 240-260 wpm on average. To address the question above, we ran a new study specifically comparing spontaneous silent reading rate with comprehension of speech presented at different rates within the same participants and using matched texts. We replicated the finding that listening comprehension was not hindered at the speech rate of 270 wpm but showed a steep decline at the rate of 315 wpm. Thus, the most efficient observed listening rate was on par with the spontaneous reading rate for the same texts (269 wpm on average). Therefore, we conclude that listening and reading follow the same time constraints. Public Significance StatementOne of the central and hotly debated questions in psychology of language is whether reading, listening, and speaking are served by fundamentally different or highly similar cognitive processes. An important piece of evidence for this debate is the speed at which production and comprehension of language takes place. This study is the first to show in the same group of participants that the timecompressed speech rate at which listening comprehension can be successful is on par with or exceeds the reading rate. This suggests that speed of comprehension is independent of modality (auditory or visual) and likely relies on highly similar cognitive processes.