Date of Award
1-10-2024
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Degree Type
Dissertation
Abstract
Understanding speech in an accent or dialect different than one’s own can be challenging. McLaughlin and Van Engen (2020) were the first to quantify this increase in listening effort using Task Evoked Pupillary Response (TEPR), a common measure of cognitive arousal. They found that monolingual, English speaking adults’ pupils dilated more quickly and to a larger degree when listening to nonnative English (here, L2 English) than when listening to natively spoken English (here, L1 English), indicating that the L2 English incurred greater processing demands than the L1 English even though it was fully intelligible. In this dissertation, I build upon this finding with three studies. First, we conduct a conceptual replication of the original study with five- through eight-year-old children, finding that while children initially show a larger pupil response to L2 English than L1 English, they quickly adapt such that the difference is not sustained across the experiment. Next, I investigate the role of suprasegmental information in driving listening effort by reanalyzing McLaughlin and Van Engen’s (2020) data. I find that suprasegmentals play a role in adaptation to L1 and L2 accents, but that suprasegmental information is used differently for each accent. Finally, I apply the suprasegmental analyses to my conceptual replication study with children, finding that children also rely on suprasegmental information for speech adaptation, but only in initial trials, as opposed to in later trials as in the adult data. Overall, I find that children and adults process and adapt to L2 speech in somewhat different ways, and that this is best explained by the Ideal Adapter Framework (Kleinschmidt & Jaeger, 2015). I conclude by suggesting that current models of speech perception and adaptation should be updated to reflect the listeners’ use of suprasegmental information when processing and adapting to L1 and L2 speech.
Language
English (en)
Chair and Committee
Kristin Van Engen
Committee Members
Brett Kessler, Mitch Sommers, Lori Markson, Tessa Bent
Recommended Citation
Altmiller, Ruth, "Listen Up: Children’s and Adults’ Listening Effort for Intelligible L1 and L2 Speech" (2024). Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 3215.
https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/art_sci_etds/3215