Short-term adaptation to accented English by younger and older adults

Gordon‐Salant, Sandra; Yeni‐Komshian, Grace H.; Fitzgibbons, Peter J.; Schurman, Jaclyn

doi:10.1121/1.3486199

Cited by 26 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…As predicted from previous studies of adaptation to accented speech (Clarke and Garrett, 2004;Bradlow and Bent, 2008;Maye et al, 2008;Adank and Janse, 2010;Gordon-Salant et al, 2010;Janse and Adank, 2012), we observed significant improvements in recognition accuracy of our novel accent over time, represented by a greater tolerance to background noise in later compared to earlier trials. As expected, we observed considerable individual variation in SRTs throughout all testing blocks, and participants who had poorer starting levels adapted the most.…”

Section: A Perceptual Adaptation To Accented Speechsupporting

confidence: 87%

Cognitive predictors of perceptual adaptation to accented speech

Banks

Gowen

Munro

et al. 2015

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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The present study investigated the effects of inhibition, vocabulary knowledge, and working memory on perceptual adaptation to accented speech. One hundred young, normal-hearing adults listened to sentences spoken in a constructed, unfamiliar accent presented in speech-shaped background noise. Speech Reception Thresholds (SRTs) corresponding to 50% speech recognition accuracy provided a measurement of adaptation to the accented speech. Stroop, vocabulary knowledge, and working memory tests were performed to measure cognitive ability. Participants adapted to the unfamiliar accent as revealed by a decrease in SRTs over time. Better inhibition (lower Stroop scores) predicted greater and faster adaptation to the unfamiliar accent. Vocabulary knowledge predicted better recognition of the unfamiliar accent, while working memory had a smaller, indirect effect on speech recognition mediated by vocabulary score. Results support a top-down model for successful adaptation to, and recognition of, accented speech; they add to recent theories that allocate a prominent role for executive function to effective speech comprehension in adverse listening conditions.

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Section: A Perceptual Adaptation To Accented Speechsupporting

confidence: 87%

Cognitive predictors of perceptual adaptation to accented speech

Banks

Gowen

Munro

et al. 2015

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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“…Thus, one could expect older adults to experience even greater difficulties than younger adults when presented with accented speech. However, most work focusing on this question confirms that while adults do have greater difficulty with accented than unaccented speech, the size of this effect is not significantly greater for older than younger listeners (Burda et al, 2003; Shah et al, 2005; Ferguson et al, 2010; Gordon-Salant et al, 2010a). It does not appear that the absence of a difference across age groups could be due to a ceiling effect (Adank et al, 2009; put forward a similar argument to explain data collected from younger listeners).…”

Section: Accent Perception In Late Adulthoodmentioning

confidence: 98%

Linguistic Processing of Accented Speech Across the Lifespan

Cristià¹,

Seidl²,

Vaughn³

et al. 2012

Front. Psychology

125

104

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In most of the world, people have regular exposure to multiple accents. Therefore, learning to quickly process accented speech is a prerequisite to successful communication. In this paper, we examine work on the perception of accented speech across the lifespan, from early infancy to late adulthood. Unfamiliar accents initially impair linguistic processing by infants, children, younger adults, and older adults, but listeners of all ages come to adapt to accented speech. Emergent research also goes beyond these perceptual abilities, by assessing links with production and the relative contributions of linguistic knowledge and general cognitive skills. We conclude by underlining points of convergence across ages, and the gaps left to face in future work.

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“…Participants in this and many previous studies were also limited to those with hearing thresholds within normal limits, and stimuli were presented in quiet or in steady state noise (Bradlow and Bent, 2008;Clarke and Garrett, 2004;Kraljic and Samuel, 2006;Sidaras et al, 2009). While Baese-Berk et al (2013) and others (Clarke and Garrett, 2004;Gordon-Salant et al, 2010c;Adank and Janse, 2010) have documented rapid, short term adaptation to foreign accented speech, these prior investigations have not included any measures of retention. An understanding of the listener's retention of any short-term training benefit is critical for designing and implementing a successful training paradigm.…”

Section: B Auditory Training Paradigmsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adaptation to novel foreign-accented speech and retention of benefit following training: Influence of aging and hearing loss

Bieber

Gordon‐Salant

2017

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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Adaptation to speech with a foreign accent is possible through prior exposure to talkers with that same accent. For young listeners with normal hearing, short term, accent-independent adaptation to a novel foreign accent is also facilitated through exposure training with multiple foreign accents. In the present study, accent-independent adaptation is examined in younger and older listeners with normal hearing and older listeners with hearing loss. Retention of training benefit is additionally explored. Stimuli for testing and training were HINT sentences recorded by talkers with nine distinctly different accents. Following two training sessions, all listener groups showed a similar increase in speech perception for a novel foreign accent. While no group retained this benefit at one week post-training, results of a secondary reaction time task revealed a decrease in reaction time following training, suggesting reduced listening effort. Examination of listeners' cognitive skills reveals a positive relationship between working memory and speech recognition ability. The present findings indicate that, while this no-feedback training paradigm for foreign-accented English is successful in promoting short term adaptation for listeners, this paradigm is not sufficient in facilitation of perceptual learning with lasting benefits for younger or older listeners.

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Short-term adaptation to accented English by younger and older adults

Cited by 26 publications

References 6 publications

Cognitive predictors of perceptual adaptation to accented speech

Cognitive predictors of perceptual adaptation to accented speech

Linguistic Processing of Accented Speech Across the Lifespan

Adaptation to novel foreign-accented speech and retention of benefit following training: Influence of aging and hearing loss

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