Effect of phonological and semantic predictability on perceived clarity of degraded speech for non-native listeners

Abstract: Many of us have experienced that speech in a non-native language under noise can be challenging. This study examined whether semantic and phonological predictability improves the intelligibility of degraded speech in a non-native language. An online experiment was conducted with 15 participants. Based on these data, a repeated-measures ANOVA showed that both overall semantic and phonological prediction enhanced perceptual clarity in degraded speech for non-native listeners. Semantic predictability was effective for non-native speakers only when the sound quality was slightly intelligible. In contrast, phonological predicatively enhance perceptual clarity at all sound quality levels except in clear and unintelligible settings. Another aim of this study was to investigate if individual cognitive ability differences are related to the benefit of phonological and semantic predictability in the non-native context. Results showed a positive Spearman correlation between working memory score and the overall benefit of phonological predictability. As for the effect per sound level, the results were significant only at intermediately intelligible sound quality level. However, there was no correlation between working memory and the benefit of semantic coherence. Verbal fluency did not correlate with either of the benefits of semantic or phonetic predictability.