English Consonant Identification in Multi-Talker Babble: Effects of Chinese-Native Listeners' English Experience

The identification of English consonants in quiet and multi-talker babble was examined for three groups of young adult listeners: Chinese in China, Chinese in the USA (CNU), and English-native listeners. As expected, native listeners outperformed non-native listeners. The two non-native groups had similar performance in quiet, whereas CNU listeners performed significantly better than Chinese in China listeners in babble. It is concluded that CNU listeners may benefit from English experience, for example, better use of temporal variation in noise and better capacity against informational masking, to perceive English consonants better in babble. Possible explanations regarding the differential noise effect on the three groups are discussed.