Publications

Listeners manage to acquire the sounds of their native language in spite of experiencing a range ofacoustic conditions during acquisition, including the presence of noise. Is the same true for nonnativesound acquisition? This study investigates whether the presence of masking noise duringconsonant training is a barrier to improvement, or, conversely, whether noise can be beneficial.Spanish learners identified English consonants with and without noise, before and after undergoingone of four extensive training regimes in which they were exposed to either consonants or vowelsin the presence or absence of speech-shaped noise. The consonant-trained cohorts showed substantiallylarger gains than the vowel-trained groups, regardless of whether they were trained in noiseor quiet. A small matched-condition benefit was evident, with noise-training resulting in largerimprovements when testing in noise, and vice versa for training in quiet. No evidence for habituationto noise was observed: the cohort trained on vowels in noise showed no transference to consonantsin noise. These findings demonstrate that noise exposure does not impede the acquisition ofsecond language sounds.