The development of the Language-Independent Speech in Noise and Reverberation test (LISiNaR) and evaluation in listeners with English as a second language

Abstract

Objective

Create a language-independent, ecologically valid auditory processing assessment and evaluate relative stimuli intelligibility in native and non-native English speakers.

Design

The Language-Independent Speech in Noise and Reverberation Test (LISiNaR) targets comprised consonant-vowel (CVCV) pseudo-words. Distractors comprised CVCVCVCV pseudo-words. Stimuli were presented over headphones using an iPad either face-to-face or remotely. Scoring occurred adaptively to establish a participant’s speech reception threshold in noise (SRT). The listening environment was simulated using reverberant and anechoic head-related transfer functions. In four test conditions, targets originated from 0°. Distractors originated from either ±90°, ±67.5° and ±45° (spatially separated) or 0° azimuth (co-located). Reverberation impact (RI) was calculated as the difference in SRTs between the anechoic and reverberant conditions and spatial advantage (SA) as the difference between the spatially separated and co-located conditions.

Study sample

Young adult native speakers of Australian (n = 24) and Canadian (25) and non-native English speakers (34).

Results

No significant effects of language occurred for the test conditions, RI or SA. A small but significant effect of delivery mode occurred for RI. Reverberation impacted SRT by 5 dB relative to anechoic conditions.

Conclusion

Performance on LISiNaR is not affected by the native language or accent of groups tested in this study.

Keywords:

• Auditory processing disorder
• spatial processing disorder
• diagnostic tools
• speech perception

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the participants who took part in this research. We would also like to thank Assoc Prof Jorg Buchholz for creating the head-related impulse responses, and Dr Nicky Chong-White for writing the test software. In respect to assistance with international participant recruitment we would like to thank Professor Astrid van Wieringen from KU Leuven University, Belgium and Ms Emelie Cittadino from the University of Toronto. This research was funded by an industry funded Co-Funded Fellowship between Macquarie University and Sonova AG. Harvey Dillon acknowledges the support of the NIHR Manchester Biomedical Research Centre.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest.