Language proficiency, context influence foreign-accent adaptation

Listeners adapt quickly to changes in accent (Bradlow & Bent, 2003; Clarke & Garrett, 2004; inter alia). The cause of this brief delay may be due to the cost of processing accented speech, or may reflect a surprise effect associated with task expectations (Floccia et al., 2009). The present study examines a link between accent familiarity and processing delays with listeners who have varying degrees of familiarity with target languages: monolingual Texans with little or no formal exposure to Spanish, early Spanish-English bilinguals, and Korean learners of English. Participants heard four blocks of English sentences—Blocks 1 and 4 were produced by two native speakers of American English, and Blocks 2 and 3 were produced by native speakers of Spanish or Korean- and responded to written probe words. All listener groups responded more slowly after an accent change; however, the degree of delay varied with language proficiency. L1 Korean listeners were less delayed by Korean-accented speech than the other listeners, while changes to Spanish-accented speech were processed most slowly by Spanish-English bilinguals. The results suggest that adaptation to foreign-accented speech depends on language familiarity and task expectations. The processing delays are analyzed in light of intelligibility and accentedness measures.