Speech-in-speech recognition is modulated by familiarity to dialect

Listening to speech in competing background speech can be difficult due to elements such as the linguistic content of the signal. Linguistic release from masking occurs when altering the masker language results in less interference in speech recognition. The greater the linguistic differences between the target and masker, the higher the speech recognition accuracy. However, for dialectal variations of the same language, these patterns are less consistent. This study examined speech-in-speech recognition in Australian English monolinguals when the target speech was in either Australian (AU) or American English, and when the masker speech was in either of the dialects or a foreign language (Swedish). Speech recognition performance was greatest when AU was the target and poorest when AU was the masker. There were fewer differences in performance between the Swedish and dialect maskers. Results indicate that speech recognition is modulated by a listener's familiarity to a dialect.