| 1. |
- Ljung, Robert, et al.
(författare)
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Top-Down Cognitive Factors Influence Second-Language Word Identification in Noise
- 2017
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Ingår i: Abstracts of the Psychonomic Society. ; , s. 291-291
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Forty-four sequential bilingual children aged fifteen underwent assessments of speech-in-noise perception, first and second language vocabulary and auditory working memory (forward digit span). In order to investigate the signal driven processes might affect bilinguals’ “spatial release from masking” (SRM) a listening in spatialized noise paradigm was adapted for the bilingual context. A simple number and colour identification task presented in English and Swedish, and the talker was masked adaptively by speech-shaped noise and eight-talker babble under two spatialized conditions in simulated room acoustics; targets and maskers were either collocated at zero degrees azimuth or spatially separated at ninety degrees azimuth to either side. The resulting language and noise conditions were contrasted with existing research on bilingual adults and native-language speaking children, extending findings to a younger sample of sequential bilingual children. The results indicating a significant relationship between cognitive ability and second-language speech reception threshold.
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| 2. |
- MacCutcheon, Douglas, et al.
(författare)
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The relationship between working memory and second language speech reception thresholds in sequential bilingual children
- 2017
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Ingår i: APCAM 2017. ; , s. 14-14
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This study considers whether or not bilingual school children listening and learning in a second language are among those on which higher perceptual processing and cognitive demands are placed when classroom noise is present. Empirical substantiation for this theory would include elevated speech reception thresholds (SRTs) for second language speech in noise, and native or second language-specific correlations between SRTs and cognitive measures such as working memory (WM) or factors such as the age at which the second language was acquired (age of second language acquisition). Forty-four Swedish sequential bilingual children with no sensory or learning deficits took part in this study. Working memory and vocabulary assessments were conducted and language background data were collected. SRTs at 50 % intelligibility were obtained using an adaptive procedure under Language, Spatial and Noise conditions. The target sentence was presented in simulated room acoustics in Swedish and English, masked by either 8-talker babble or speech shaped noise (SSN) with identical long-term average speech spectra, and noise maskers were positioned either directly in front of the listener or spatially separated from the target at 90° azimuth to either side. Main effects in the Spatial and Noise conditions indicated that spatial release from masking favoured spatially separated conditions and a noise release from masking advantage for SSN conditions, indicated by significantly lower thresholds for those conditions. There were no significant interactions with Language. The age of second language acquisition did not significantly predict second language SRTs and was excluded from the regression model. However, WM significantly predicted 21% of the variance in the second language SRTs, and 9% of the variance in native language SRTs. WM predicted more of the variance in second language SRTs than first language SRTs, suggesting that cognition plays more of a role in second language perceptual processes than native language ones.
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