Performance of auditory search with Japanese speech by native speakers and its learners as L2
Noriaki Asemi, Ryôko Hayashi, Kazuhiko Kakehi · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 2006
Auditory search experiments using normal Japanese speech (NJS) and time-reversed speech (TRS) [Asemi et al., Acoust. Sci. Technol., 24, 145–147 (2003)] demonstrated fast and accurate judgment of the presence or absence of the target NJS among distracting TRSs. For application of an auditory search to measurement of the ability of auditory comprehension of foreign language, the effects of the learning proficiency of Japanese on the speed and accuracy in the detection of the target NJS were examined through auditory search experiments for native and non-native speakers of Japanese. The experiment comprised two parts: an NJS was the target and TRSs were distractors and vice versa. Subjects were requested to judge the presence or absence of a target speech correctly and as quickly as possible when a target and several distracters were presented simultaneously and diotically. Results showed remarkable differences between the performance of natives and non-native speakers in error rates rather than in the reaction times. Moreover, significant correlations were found between the error rates and the learning experiences only when fewer than three utterances were presented simultaneously. [Work supported by MEXT.]