Talker- and language-specific effects on speech intelligibility in noise assessed with bilingual talkers: Which language is more robust against noise and reverberation?
OBJECTIVE
Investigate talker- and language-specific aspects of speech intelligibility in noise and reverberation using highly comparable matrix sentence tests across languages.


METHODS
Matrix sentences spoken by German/Russian and German/Spanish bilingual talkers were recorded. These sentences were used to measure speech reception thresholds (SRTs) with native listeners in the respective languages in different listening conditions (stationary and fluctuating noise, multi-talker babble, reverberated speech-in-noise condition).


METHODS
Four German/Russian and four German/Spanish bilingual talkers; 20 native German-speaking, 10 native Russian-speaking, and 10 native Spanish-speaking listeners.


RESULTS
Across-talker SRT differences of up to 6 dB were found for both groups of bilinguals. SRTs of German/Russian bilingual talkers were the same in both languages. SRTs of German/Spanish bilingual talkers were higher when they talked in Spanish than when they talked in German. The benefit from listening in the gaps was similar across all languages. The detrimental effect of reverberation was larger for Spanish than for German and Russian.


CONCLUSIONS
Within the limitations set by the number and slight accentedness of talkers and other possible confounding factors, talker- and test-condition-dependent differences were isolated from the language effect: Russian and German exhibited similar intelligibility in noise and reverberation, whereas Spanish was more impaired in these situations.
a Cluster of Excellence Hearing4all and Medizinische Physik, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg , Germany.
Sabine
S
Hochmuth
a Cluster of Excellence Hearing4all and Medizinische Physik, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg , Germany.
Tim
T
Jürgens
a Cluster of Excellence Hearing4all and Medizinische Physik, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg , Germany.
Thomas
T
Brand
a Cluster of Excellence Hearing4all and Medizinische Physik, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg , Germany.
Birger
B
Kollmeier
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000162:Acoustics; D000328:Adult; D001309:Auditory Threshold; D032882:Comprehension; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D019303:Multilingualism; D009622:Noise / Q000009:adverse effects*; D015588:Observer Variation; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013018:Sound Spectrography; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D013065:Speech Intelligibility; D013067:Speech Perception; D013069:Speech Reception Threshold Test / Q000379:methods*; D014732:Vibration; D014833:Voice Quality; D055815:Young Adult
German; Intelligibility; Russian; Spanish; bilingual; language-specific; speech reception threshold (SRT); talker-specific