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Effects of bilingualism, noise, and reverberation on speech perception by listeners with normal hearing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2006

CATHERINE L. ROGERS ,
JENNIFER J. LISTER ,
DASHIELLE M. FEBO ,
JOAN M. BESING  and
HARVEY B. ABRAMS
CATHERINE L. ROGERS
Affiliation:
University of South Florida
JENNIFER J. LISTER
Affiliation:
University of South Florida
DASHIELLE M. FEBO
Affiliation:
University of South Florida
JOAN M. BESING
Affiliation:
Montclair State University
HARVEY B. ABRAMS
Affiliation:
Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Audiology and Speech Pathology Services
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Abstract

This study compared monosyllabic word recognition in quiet, noise, and noise with reverberation for 15 monolingual American English speakers and 12 Spanish–English bilinguals who had learned English prior to 6 years of age and spoke English without a noticeable foreign accent. Significantly poorer word recognition scores were obtained for the bilingual listeners than for the monolingual listeners under conditions of noise and noise with reverberation, but not in quiet. Although bilinguals with little or no foreign accent in their second language are often assumed by their peers, or their clinicians in the case of hearing loss, to be identical in perceptual abilities to monolinguals, the present data suggest that they may have greater difficulty in recognizing words in noisy or reverberant listening environments.

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Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 27 , Issue 3 , July 2006 , pp. 465 - 485
Copyright
2006 Cambridge University Press

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