Designing acoustics for linguistically diverse classrooms: Effects of background noise, reverberation and talker foreign accent on speech comprehension by native and non-native English-speaking listeners

Science.gov (United States)

Peng, Zhao Ellen

The current classroom acoustics standard (ANSI S12.60-2010) recommends core learning spaces not to exceed background noise level (BNL) of 35 dBA and reverberation time (RT) of 0.6 second, based on speech intelligibility performance mainly by the native English-speaking population. Existing literature has not correlated these recommended values well with student learning outcomes. With a growing population of non-native English speakers in American classrooms, the special needs for perceiving degraded speech among non-native listeners, either due to realistic room acoustics or talker foreign accent, have not been addressed in the current standard. This research seeks to investigate the effects of BNL and RT on the comprehension of English speech from native English and native Mandarin Chinese talkers as perceived by native and non-native English listeners, and to provide acoustic design guidelines to supplement the existing standard. This dissertation presents two studies on the effects of RT and BNL on more realistic classroom learning experiences. How do native and non-native English-speaking listeners perform on speech comprehension tasks under adverse acoustic conditions, if the English speech is produced by talkers of native English (Study 1) versus native Mandarin Chinese (Study 2)? Speech comprehension materials were played back in a listening chamber to individual listeners: native and non-native English-speaking in Study 1; native English, native Mandarin Chinese, and other non-native English-speaking in Study 2. Each listener was screened for baseline English proficiency level, and completed dual tasks simultaneously involving speech comprehension and adaptive dot-tracing under 15 acoustic conditions, comprised of three BNL conditions (RC-30, 40, and 50) and five RT scenarios (0.4 to 1.2 seconds). The results show that BNL and RT negatively affect both objective performance and subjective perception of speech comprehension, more severely for non

Accents in the workplace: their effects during a job interview.

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Deprez-Sims, Anne-Sophie; Morris, Scott B

2010-12-01

As the workplace becomes increasingly global, organizations are more likely to employ persons from other countries whose accents clearly identify them as different from the local workforce. Understanding the impact of accents in the workplace is important because accents can be salient in the same way as ethnicity, age, gender, and skin color and may be a source of employment discrimination. The present study looked at the influence of accents on the evaluation of job applicants during an interview for a human resource manager position. Participants from the US were asked to evaluate an applicant with one of three accents (Midwestern US, French, Colombian) by listening to an audiofile. The results showed that the applicant with the Midwestern US accent was evaluated more positively than the applicant with the French accent; however, the applicant with the Colombian accent did not receive an evaluation that differed significantly from those given to the applicants with either the French or the Midwestern US accent. Analyses of process variables indicated that the bias against the French-accented applicant was mediated by perceived lower similarity. These results are consistent with the similarity-attraction hypothesis, which states that demographic variables will impact judgments to the extent to which they make the decision-maker view the applicant as similar or dissimilar. The ability of accent to trigger bias highlights the importance of considering the full array of characteristics that can lead to discrimination in employment settings. Research on employment discrimination has traditionally focused on visual cues such as gender and ethnicity, but in an interview situation, the way the applicant speaks is also important.

Automaticity and stability of adaptation to a foreign-accented speaker

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Witteman, M.J.; Bardhan, N.P.; Weber, A.C.; McQueen, J.M.

2015-01-01

In three cross-modal priming experiments we asked whether adaptation to a foreign-accented speaker is automatic, and whether adaptation can be seen after a long delay between initial exposure and test. Dutch listeners were exposed to a Hebrew-accented Dutch speaker with two types of Dutch words:

The way you say it, the way I feel it: emotional word processing in accented speech

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Hatzidaki, Anna; Baus, Cristina; Costa, Albert

2015-01-01

The present study examined whether processing words with affective connotations in a listener's native language may be modulated by accented speech. To address this question, we used the Event Related Potential (ERP) technique and recorded the cerebral activity of Spanish native listeners, who performed a semantic categorization task, while listening to positive, negative and neutral words produced in standard Spanish or in four foreign accents. The behavioral results yielded longer latencies for emotional than for neutral words in both native and foreign-accented speech, with no difference between positive and negative words. The electrophysiological results replicated previous findings from the emotional language literature, with the amplitude of the Late Positive Complex (LPC), associated with emotional language processing, being larger (more positive) for emotional than for neutral words at posterior scalp sites. Interestingly, foreign-accented speech was found to interfere with the processing of positive valence and go along with a negativity bias, possibly suggesting heightened attention to negative words. The manipulation employed in the present study provides an interesting perspective on the effects of accented speech on processing affective-laden information. It shows that higher order semantic processes that involve emotion-related aspects are sensitive to a speaker's accent. PMID:25870577

Accentedness and intelligibility of Mandarin-accented English for Chinese, Koreans and Americans

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hardman, Jocelyn

2014-01-01

English is used as a lingua franca not only throughout Asia, but also in Inner Circle countries for academic purposes. Due to wide variation in L2 English speech, however, mutual intelligibility is an increasing concern. Since accentedness does not necessarily correlate with intelligibility...... and results have been mixed as to the benefit of interlanguage match, a study focused on the academic context investigated the extent to which Mandarin-accented English was intelligible to L1 Mandarin listeners, as compared to Koreans and Americans, and whether intelligibility varied by talker segmental...... revealed that listener L1 and word familiarity were significant predictors of intelligibility, but that talker segmental production accuracy was not. A clear benefit for interlanguage match was found for the Mandarin L1 listeners with Mandarin-accented English as compared to the Korean listeners, however...

Multidisciplinary Assessment and Diagnosis of Conversion Disorder in a Patient with Foreign Accent Syndrome

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Harrison N. Jones

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Multiple reports have described patients with disordered articulation and prosody, often following acute aphasia, dysarthria, or apraxia of speech, which results in the perception by listeners of a foreign-like accent. These features led to the term foreign accent syndrome (FAS, a speech disorder with perceptual features that suggest an indistinct, non-native speaking accent. Also correctly known as psuedoforeign accent, the speech does not typically match a specific foreign accent, but is rather a constellation of speech features that result in the perception of a foreign accent by listeners. The primary etiologies of FAS are cerebrovascular accidents or traumatic brain injuries which affect cortical and subcortical regions critical to expressive speech and language production. Far fewer cases of FAS associated with psychiatric conditions have been reported. We will present the clinical history, neurological examination, neuropsychological assessment, cognitive-behavioral and biofeedback assessments, and motor speech examination of a patient with FAS without a known vascular, traumatic, or infectious precipitant. Repeated multidisciplinary examinations of this patient provided convergent evidence in support of FAS secondary to conversion disorder. We discuss these findings and their implications for evaluation and treatment of rare neurological and psychiatric conditions.

Accent modulates access to word meaning: Evidence for a speaker-model account of spoken word recognition.

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Cai, Zhenguang G; Gilbert, Rebecca A; Davis, Matthew H; Gaskell, M Gareth; Farrar, Lauren; Adler, Sarah; Rodd, Jennifer M

2017-11-01

Speech carries accent information relevant to determining the speaker's linguistic and social background. A series of web-based experiments demonstrate that accent cues can modulate access to word meaning. In Experiments 1-3, British participants were more likely to retrieve the American dominant meaning (e.g., hat meaning of "bonnet") in a word association task if they heard the words in an American than a British accent. In addition, results from a speeded semantic decision task (Experiment 4) and sentence comprehension task (Experiment 5) confirm that accent modulates on-line meaning retrieval such that comprehension of ambiguous words is easier when the relevant word meaning is dominant in the speaker's dialect. Critically, neutral-accent speech items, created by morphing British- and American-accented recordings, were interpreted in a similar way to accented words when embedded in a context of accented words (Experiment 2). This finding indicates that listeners do not use accent to guide meaning retrieval on a word-by-word basis; instead they use accent information to determine the dialectic identity of a speaker and then use their experience of that dialect to guide meaning access for all words spoken by that person. These results motivate a speaker-model account of spoken word recognition in which comprehenders determine key characteristics of their interlocutor and use this knowledge to guide word meaning access. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

What makes listening difficult? Factors affecting second language listening comprehension

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

idioms in the passage on listening comprehension. The American Heritage Dictionary (2000) defines idiom as “an expression consisting of two or more...years of age and spoke English without a noticeable foreign accent had significantly poorer word recognition scores than monolingual listeners for...of reference: The experience of the Dutch CEFR Construct Project. Language Assessment Quarterly, 3(1), 3–30. American Heritage Dictionary of the

Focus, accent, and argument structure: effects on language comprehension.

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Birch, S; Clifton, C

1995-01-01

Four experiments investigated the effect of syntactic argument structure on the evaluation and comprehension of utterances with different patterns of pitch accents. Linguistic analyses of the relation between focus and prosody note that it is possible for certain accented constituents within a broadly focused phrase to project focus to the entire phrase. We manipulated focus requirements and accent in recorded question-answer pairs and asked listeners to make linguistic judgments of prosodic appropriateness (Experiments 1 and 3) or to make judgments based on meaningful comprehension (Experiments 2 and 4). Naive judgments of prosodic appropriateness were generally consistent with the linguistic analyses, showing preferences for utterances in which contextually new noun phrases received accent and old noun phrases did not, but suggested that an accented new argument NP was not fully effective in projecting broad focus to the entire VP. However, the comprehension experiments did demonstrate that comprehension of a sentence with broad VP focus was as efficient when only a lexical argument NP received accent as when both NP and verb received accent. Such focus projection did not occur when the argument NP was an "independent quantifier" such as nobody or everything. The results extend existing demonstrations that the ease of understanding spoken discourse depends on appropriate intonational marking of focus to cases where certain structurally-defined words can project focus-marking to an entire phrase.

More than a boundary shift: Perceptual adaptation to foreign-accented speech reshapes the internal structure of phonetic categories.

Science.gov (United States)

Xie, Xin; Theodore, Rachel M; Myers, Emily B

2017-01-01

The literature on perceptual learning for speech shows that listeners use lexical information to disambiguate phonetically ambiguous speech sounds and that they maintain this new mapping for later recognition of ambiguous sounds for a given talker. Evidence for this kind of perceptual reorganization has focused on phonetic category boundary shifts. Here, we asked whether listeners adjust both category boundaries and internal category structure in rapid adaptation to foreign accents. We investigated the perceptual learning of Mandarin-accented productions of word-final voiced stops in English. After exposure to a Mandarin speaker's productions, native-English listeners' adaptation to the talker was tested in 3 ways: a cross-modal priming task to assess spoken word recognition (Experiment 1), a category identification task to assess shifts in the phonetic boundary (Experiment 2), and a goodness rating task to assess internal category structure (Experiment 3). Following exposure, both category boundary and internal category structure were adjusted; moreover, these prelexical changes facilitated subsequent word recognition. Together, the results demonstrate that listeners' sensitivity to acoustic-phonetic detail in the accented input promoted a dynamic, comprehensive reorganization of their perceptual response as a consequence of exposure to the accented input. We suggest that an examination of internal category structure is important for a complete account of the mechanisms of perceptual learning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Foreign accent, cognitive load and intelligibility of EMI lectures

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jensen, Christian; Thøgersen, Jacob

2017-01-01

This study investigated the effect of foreign accent on the understanding of spoken texts in two different contexts: (1) when listeners extract surface level meaning of simple utterances, labelled “intelligibility in simple tasks” (IS) below, and (2) when they answer content questions to a complex...

Recognizing speech in a novel accent: the motor theory of speech perception reframed.

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Moulin-Frier, Clément; Arbib, Michael A

2013-08-01

The motor theory of speech perception holds that we perceive the speech of another in terms of a motor representation of that speech. However, when we have learned to recognize a foreign accent, it seems plausible that recognition of a word rarely involves reconstruction of the speech gestures of the speaker rather than the listener. To better assess the motor theory and this observation, we proceed in three stages. Part 1 places the motor theory of speech perception in a larger framework based on our earlier models of the adaptive formation of mirror neurons for grasping, and for viewing extensions of that mirror system as part of a larger system for neuro-linguistic processing, augmented by the present consideration of recognizing speech in a novel accent. Part 2 then offers a novel computational model of how a listener comes to understand the speech of someone speaking the listener's native language with a foreign accent. The core tenet of the model is that the listener uses hypotheses about the word the speaker is currently uttering to update probabilities linking the sound produced by the speaker to phonemes in the native language repertoire of the listener. This, on average, improves the recognition of later words. This model is neutral regarding the nature of the representations it uses (motor vs. auditory). It serve as a reference point for the discussion in Part 3, which proposes a dual-stream neuro-linguistic architecture to revisits claims for and against the motor theory of speech perception and the relevance of mirror neurons, and extracts some implications for the reframing of the motor theory.

Shhh… I Need Quiet! Children's Understanding of American, British, and Japanese-accented English Speakers.

Science.gov (United States)

Bent, Tessa; Holt, Rachael Frush

2018-02-01

Children's ability to understand speakers with a wide range of dialects and accents is essential for efficient language development and communication in a global society. Here, the impact of regional dialect and foreign-accent variability on children's speech understanding was evaluated in both quiet and noisy conditions. Five- to seven-year-old children ( n = 90) and adults ( n = 96) repeated sentences produced by three speakers with different accents-American English, British English, and Japanese-accented English-in quiet or noisy conditions. Adults had no difficulty understanding any speaker in quiet conditions. Their performance declined for the nonnative speaker with a moderate amount of noise; their performance only substantially declined for the British English speaker (i.e., below 93% correct) when their understanding of the American English speaker was also impeded. In contrast, although children showed accurate word recognition for the American and British English speakers in quiet conditions, they had difficulty understanding the nonnative speaker even under ideal listening conditions. With a moderate amount of noise, their perception of British English speech declined substantially and their ability to understand the nonnative speaker was particularly poor. These results suggest that although school-aged children can understand unfamiliar native dialects under ideal listening conditions, their ability to recognize words in these dialects may be highly susceptible to the influence of environmental degradation. Fully adult-like word identification for speakers with unfamiliar accents and dialects may exhibit a protracted developmental trajectory.

Effects of regiolects on the perception of developmental foreign accent syndrome

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Tops, Wim; Neimeijer, Silke; Mariën, Peter

Foreign accent syndrome (FAS) is a relatively rare speech motor disorder in which the pro- nunciation of an affected speaker is perceived as distinctly foreign by listeners of the same language community. Because of various close semiological resemblances with apraxia of speech, FAS has been

What makes a rhythm complex? The influence of musical training and accent type on beat perception.

Science.gov (United States)

Bouwer, Fleur L; Burgoyne, J Ashley; Odijk, Daan; Honing, Henkjan; Grahn, Jessica A

2018-01-01

Perception of a regular beat in music is inferred from different types of accents. For example, increases in loudness cause intensity accents, and the grouping of time intervals in a rhythm creates temporal accents. Accents are expected to occur on the beat: when accents are "missing" on the beat, the beat is more difficult to find. However, it is unclear whether accents occurring off the beat alter beat perception similarly to missing accents on the beat. Moreover, no one has examined whether intensity accents influence beat perception more or less strongly than temporal accents, nor how musical expertise affects sensitivity to each type of accent. In two experiments, we obtained ratings of difficulty in finding the beat in rhythms with either temporal or intensity accents, and which varied in the number of accents on the beat as well as the number of accents off the beat. In both experiments, the occurrence of accents on the beat facilitated beat detection more in musical experts than in musical novices. In addition, the number of accents on the beat affected beat finding more in rhythms with temporal accents than in rhythms with intensity accents. The effect of accents off the beat was much weaker than the effect of accents on the beat and appeared to depend on musical expertise, as well as on the number of accents on the beat: when many accents on the beat are missing, beat perception is quite difficult, and adding accents off the beat may not reduce beat perception further. Overall, the different types of accents were processed qualitatively differently, depending on musical expertise. Therefore, these findings indicate the importance of designing ecologically valid stimuli when testing beat perception in musical novices, who may need different types of accent information than musical experts to be able to find a beat. Furthermore, our findings stress the importance of carefully designing rhythms for social and clinical applications of beat perception, as not

Accent and television journalism: evidence for the practice of speech language pathologists and audiologists.

Science.gov (United States)

Lopes, Leonardo Wanderley; Lima, Ivonaldo Leidson Barbosa; Silva, Eveline Gonçalves; Almeida, Larissa Nadjara Alves de; Almeida, Anna Alice Figueiredo de

2013-01-01

To analyze the preferences and attitudes of listeners in relation to regional (RA) and softened accents (SA) in television journalism. Three television news presenters recorded carrier phrases and a standard text using RA and SA. The recordings were presented to 105 judges who listened to the word pairs and answered whether they perceived differences between the RA and SA, and the type of pronunciation that they preferred in the speech of television news presenters. Afterwards, they listened to the sentences and judged seven attributes in the contexts of RA and SA using a semantic differential scale. The listeners perceived the difference between the regional and softened pronunciation (pstudied (pstudied (pstudied.

Agnosia for accents in primary progressive aphasia☆

Science.gov (United States)

Fletcher, Phillip D.; Downey, Laura E.; Agustus, Jennifer L.; Hailstone, Julia C.; Tyndall, Marina H.; Cifelli, Alberto; Schott, Jonathan M.; Warrington, Elizabeth K.; Warren, Jason D.

2013-01-01

As an example of complex auditory signal processing, the analysis of accented speech is potentially vulnerable in the progressive aphasias. However, the brain basis of accent processing and the effects of neurodegenerative disease on this processing are not well understood. Here we undertook a detailed neuropsychological study of a patient, AA with progressive nonfluent aphasia, in whom agnosia for accents was a prominent clinical feature. We designed a battery to assess AA's ability to process accents in relation to other complex auditory signals. AA's performance was compared with a cohort of 12 healthy age and gender matched control participants and with a second patient, PA, who had semantic dementia with phonagnosia and prosopagnosia but no reported difficulties with accent processing. Relative to healthy controls, the patients showed distinct profiles of accent agnosia. AA showed markedly impaired ability to distinguish change in an individual's accent despite being able to discriminate phonemes and voices (apperceptive accent agnosia); and in addition, a severe deficit of accent identification. In contrast, PA was able to perceive changes in accents, phonemes and voices normally, but showed a relatively mild deficit of accent identification (associative accent agnosia). Both patients showed deficits of voice and environmental sound identification, however PA showed an additional deficit of face identification whereas AA was able to identify (though not name) faces normally. These profiles suggest that AA has conjoint (or interacting) deficits involving both apperceptive and semantic processing of accents, while PA has a primary semantic (associative) deficit affecting accents along with other kinds of auditory objects and extending beyond the auditory modality. Brain MRI revealed left peri-Sylvian atrophy in case AA and relatively focal asymmetric (predominantly right sided) temporal lobe atrophy in case PA. These cases provide further evidence for the

Agnosia for accents in primary progressive aphasia.

Science.gov (United States)

Fletcher, Phillip D; Downey, Laura E; Agustus, Jennifer L; Hailstone, Julia C; Tyndall, Marina H; Cifelli, Alberto; Schott, Jonathan M; Warrington, Elizabeth K; Warren, Jason D

2013-08-01

As an example of complex auditory signal processing, the analysis of accented speech is potentially vulnerable in the progressive aphasias. However, the brain basis of accent processing and the effects of neurodegenerative disease on this processing are not well understood. Here we undertook a detailed neuropsychological study of a patient, AA with progressive nonfluent aphasia, in whom agnosia for accents was a prominent clinical feature. We designed a battery to assess AA's ability to process accents in relation to other complex auditory signals. AA's performance was compared with a cohort of 12 healthy age and gender matched control participants and with a second patient, PA, who had semantic dementia with phonagnosia and prosopagnosia but no reported difficulties with accent processing. Relative to healthy controls, the patients showed distinct profiles of accent agnosia. AA showed markedly impaired ability to distinguish change in an individual's accent despite being able to discriminate phonemes and voices (apperceptive accent agnosia); and in addition, a severe deficit of accent identification. In contrast, PA was able to perceive changes in accents, phonemes and voices normally, but showed a relatively mild deficit of accent identification (associative accent agnosia). Both patients showed deficits of voice and environmental sound identification, however PA showed an additional deficit of face identification whereas AA was able to identify (though not name) faces normally. These profiles suggest that AA has conjoint (or interacting) deficits involving both apperceptive and semantic processing of accents, while PA has a primary semantic (associative) deficit affecting accents along with other kinds of auditory objects and extending beyond the auditory modality. Brain MRI revealed left peri-Sylvian atrophy in case AA and relatively focal asymmetric (predominantly right sided) temporal lobe atrophy in case PA. These cases provide further evidence for the

Adapting to foreign-accented speech: The role of delay in testing

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Witteman, M.J.; Bardhan, N.P.; Weber, A.C.; McQueen, J.M.

2011-01-01

Understanding speech usually seems easy, but it can become noticeably harder when the speaker has a foreign accent. This is because foreign accents add considerable variation to speech. Research on foreign-accented speech shows that participants are able to adapt quickly to this type of variation.

Acoustic and Perceptual Correlates of Foreign Accent Syndrome with Manic Etiology: A Case Study

Science.gov (United States)

Lewis, Skye; Ball, Laura J.; Kitten, Suzanna

2013-01-01

In foreign accent syndrome (FAS), changes in articulation and prosody cause listeners to perceive the speaker as "foreign-sounding." Fewer than 100 cases of FAS have been described in the literature; commonly associated with brain damage, only a handful of these have been analyzed with respect to acoustic measures. Acoustic and…

Listening to a non-native speaker: Adaptation and generalization

Science.gov (United States)

Clarke, Constance M.

2004-05-01

Non-native speech can cause perceptual difficulty for the native listener, but experience can moderate this difficulty. This study explored the perceptual benefit of a brief (approximately 1 min) exposure to foreign-accented speech using a cross-modal word matching paradigm. Processing speed was tracked by recording reaction times (RTs) to visual probe words following English sentences produced by a Spanish-accented speaker. In experiment 1, RTs decreased significantly over 16 accented utterances and by the end were equal to RTs to a native voice. In experiment 2, adaptation to one Spanish-accented voice improved perceptual efficiency for a new Spanish-accented voice, indicating that abstract properties of accented speech are learned during adaptation. The control group in Experiment 2 also adapted to the accented voice during the test block, suggesting adaptation can occur within two to four sentences. The results emphasize the flexibility of the human speech processing system and the need for a mechanism to explain this adaptation in models of spoken word recognition. [Research supported by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and the University of Arizona Cognitive Science Program.] a)Currently at SUNY at Buffalo, Dept. of Psych., Park Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260, cclarke2@buffalo.edu

Pitch structure, but not selective attention, affects accent weightings in metrical grouping.

Science.gov (United States)

Prince, Jon B

2014-10-01

Among other cues, pitch and temporal accents contribute to grouping in musical sequences. However, exactly how they combine remains unclear, possibly because of the role of structural organization. In 3 experiments, participants rated the perceived metrical grouping of sequences that either adhered to the rules of tonal Western musical pitch structure (musical key) or did not (atonal). The tonal status of sequences did not provide any grouping cues and was irrelevant to the task. Experiment 1 established equally strong levels of pitch leap accents and duration accents in baseline conditions, which were then recombined in subsequent experiments. Neither accent type was stronger or weaker for tonal and atonal contexts. In Experiment 2, pitch leap accents dominated over duration accents, but the extent of this advantage was greater when sequences were tonal. Experiment 3 ruled out an attentional origin of this effect by replicating this finding while explicitly manipulating attention to pitch or duration accents between participant groups. Overall, the presence of tonal pitch structure made the dimension of pitch more salient at the expense of time. These findings support a dimensional salience framework in which the presence of organizational structure prioritizes the processing of the more structured dimension regardless of task relevance, independent from psychophysical difficulty, and impervious to attentional allocation.

How do we perceive accents? The association between essentialist perceptions and accents

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

2015-09-01

Conclusions: Corresponding to previous research, our results indicate that accents can be used to categorise people and foster perceptions of group homogeneity. More importantly, we found this to be a dynamic process that included the perceivers’ perception of their own accent. We tentatively suggest that accents may serve as a mediating factor in the relationship between group categorisation and essentialist perceptions.

Selecting participants for listening tests of multi-channel reproduced sound

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Wickelmaier, Florian Maria; Choisel, Sylvain

2005-01-01

A selection procedure was devised in order to select listeners for experiments in which their main task will be to judge multichannel reproduced sound. Ninety-one participants filled in a web-based questionnaire. Seventy-eight of them took part in an assessment of their hearing thresholds......, their spatial hearing, and their verbal production abilities. The listeners displayed large individual differences in their performance. Forty subjects were selected based on the test results. The self-assessed listening habits and experience in the web-questionnaire could not predict the results...... of the selection procedure. Further, the hearing thresholds did not correlate with the spatial-hearing test. This leads to the conclusion that task-specific performance tests might be the preferable means of selecting a listening panel....

Selecting participants for listening tests of multi-channel reproduced sound

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Wickelmaier, Florian; Choisel, Sylvain

2005-01-01

A selection procedure was devised in order to select listeners for experiments in which their main task will be to judge multi-channel reproduced sound. 91 participants filled in a web-based questionnaire. 78 of them took part in an assessment of their hearing thresholds, their spatial hearing......, and their verbal production abilities. The listeners displayed large individual differences in their performance. 40 subjects were selected based on the test results. The self-assessed listening habits and experience in the web questionnaire could not predict the results of the selection procedure. Further......, the hearing thresholds did not correlate with the spatial-hearing test. This leads to the conclusion that task-specific performance tests might be the preferable means of selecting a listening panel....

Bilingual children's social preferences hinge on accent.

Science.gov (United States)

DeJesus, Jasmine M; Hwang, Hyesung G; Dautel, Jocelyn B; Kinzler, Katherine D

2017-12-01

Past research finds that monolingual and bilingual children prefer native speakers to individuals who speak in unfamiliar foreign languages or accents. Do children in bilingual contexts socially distinguish among familiar languages and accents and, if so, how do their social preferences based on language and accent compare? The current experiments tested whether 5- to 7-year-olds in two bilingual contexts in the United States demonstrate social preferences among the languages and accents that are present in their social environments. We compared children's preferences based on language (i.e., English vs. their other native language) and their preferences based on accent (i.e., English with a native accent vs. English with a non-native [yet familiar] accent). In Experiment 1, children attending a French immersion school demonstrated no preference between English and French speakers but preferred American-accented English to French-accented English. In Experiment 2, bilingual Korean American children demonstrated no preference between English and Korean speakers but preferred American-accented English to Korean-accented English. Across studies, bilingual children's preferences based on accent (i.e., American-accented English over French- or Korean-accented English) were not related to their own language dominance. These results suggest that children from diverse linguistic backgrounds demonstrate social preferences for native-accented speakers. Implications for understanding the potential relation between social reasoning and language acquisition are discussed. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The common denominator in the perception of accents in cases with foreign accent syndrome

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Jonkers, Roel; van der Scheer, Fennetta; Gilbers, Dicky

2017-01-01

Background: Foreign accent syndrome (FAS) is a rare speech disorder leading to a perceived presence of a new accent in a speaker’s speech. Until now, around 100 cases of FAS have been reported. It is striking that in most cases the perception of the accent is in one consistent direction, namely from

Participants' experiences of music, mindful music, and audiobook listening interventions for people recovering from stroke.

Science.gov (United States)

Baylan, Satu; McGinlay, Meigan; MacDonald, Maxine; Easto, Jake; Cullen, Breda; Haig, Caroline; Mercer, Stewart W; Murray, Heather; Quinn, Terence J; Stott, David; Broomfield, Niall M; Stiles, Ciara; Evans, Jonathan J

2018-05-04

Existing research evidence suggests that both music listening and mindfulness interventions may have beneficial effects on mood and cognition poststroke. This mixed-methods study, nested within a pilot randomized controlled trial investigating the feasibility and acceptability of combining music listening and brief mindfulness training poststroke, explored study participants' experiences of engaging in the interventions. Fifty-six stroke survivors who were randomized to receive an 8-week intervention of mindful music listening (n = 15), music listening (n = 21), or audiobook listening (n = 20, control) using self-selected material participated in a postintervention individual semistructured interview with a researcher not involved in their intervention delivery. Interview questions focused on affective, cognitive, and physical experiences. Data were coded and analyzed using thematic analysis. Across groups, listening was associated with positive distraction from thoughts and worries. Mindful music listening was most strongly associated with relaxation and concentration, improved attentional control, and emotion regulation, as well as enjoyment. Music listening was most strongly associated with increased activity, memory reminiscence, and improved mood. In addition, participants provided valuable feedback on intervention feasibility and acceptability. The findings suggest that the interventions were feasible and enjoyable for people recovering from stroke. © 2018 New York Academy of Sciences.

Difficulties that Students who Learn Turkish as a Foreign Language Encounter During Listening Skills

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Abdullah KALDIRIM

2017-04-01

Full Text Available Listening skills play an important role in an individual’s communication with others and in their understanding of the environment. Since it provides a basis for the acquisition of language skills it is one of the most important learning tools, and because it is frequently used in everyday life and in the learning process, listening skill is the foreground of foreign language teaching. It is important for students to understand what they listen to in order that they do not encounter any difficulties in the language learning process. To ensure success in the environments where the Turkish language is taught as a foreign language, it is necessary to follow the listening processes of the students attentively and to identify the problems they face during this process. This study aims to identify the listening barriers encountered by university students learning Turkish as a foreign language at level B2, and was designed based on a qualitative research approach and a phenomenological design. Within the scope of the study, eight students studying at Dumlupınar University’s TÖMER (Turkish & Foreign Languages Research and Application Center were identified as participants. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews conducted with students included in the sample, and descriptive analysis technique was applied in the analysis of the research data. Participants expressed views that they often encountered problems such as accented speech, frequent use of idioms and proverbs during listening, lack of vocabulary development, and lack of emphasis and voice intonation during speech. Also, factors that make listening easy to understand are identified as the other languages they speak, good vocabulary knowledge, interesting topics, listening to audiovisual elements, and the speaker’s use of gestures and mimics.

Sequenced subjective accents for brain-computer interfaces

Science.gov (United States)

Vlek, R. J.; Schaefer, R. S.; Gielen, C. C. A. M.; Farquhar, J. D. R.; Desain, P.

2011-06-01

Subjective accenting is a cognitive process in which identical auditory pulses at an isochronous rate turn into the percept of an accenting pattern. This process can be voluntarily controlled, making it a candidate for communication from human user to machine in a brain-computer interface (BCI) system. In this study we investigated whether subjective accenting is a feasible paradigm for BCI and how its time-structured nature can be exploited for optimal decoding from non-invasive EEG data. Ten subjects perceived and imagined different metric patterns (two-, three- and four-beat) superimposed on a steady metronome. With an offline classification paradigm, we classified imagined accented from non-accented beats on a single trial (0.5 s) level with an average accuracy of 60.4% over all subjects. We show that decoding of imagined accents is also possible with a classifier trained on perception data. Cyclic patterns of accents and non-accents were successfully decoded with a sequence classification algorithm. Classification performances were compared by means of bit rate. Performance in the best scenario translates into an average bit rate of 4.4 bits min-1 over subjects, which makes subjective accenting a promising paradigm for an online auditory BCI.

Credibility of native and non-native speakers of English revisited: Do non-native listeners feel the same?

OpenAIRE

Hanzlíková, Dagmar; Skarnitzl, Radek

2017-01-01

This study reports on research stimulated by Lev-Ari and Keysar (2010) who showed that native listeners find statements delivered by foreign-accented speakers to be less true than those read by native speakers. Our objective was to replicate the study with non-native listeners to see whether this effect is also relevant in international communication contexts. The same set of statements from the original study was recorded by 6 native and 6 nonnative speakers of English. 121 non-native listen...

Accent, Intelligibility, and the Role of the Listener: Perceptions of English-Accented German by Native German Speakers

Science.gov (United States)

Hayes-Harb, Rachel; Watzinger-Tharp, Johanna

2012-01-01

We explore the relationship between accentedness and intelligibility, and investigate how listeners' beliefs about nonnative speech interact with their accentedness and intelligibility judgments. Native German speakers and native English learners of German produced German sentences, which were presented to 12 native German speakers in accentedness…

Why Not Non-Native Varieties of English as Listening Comprehension Test Input?

Science.gov (United States)

Abeywickrama, Priyanvada

2013-01-01

The existence of different varieties of English in target language use (TLU) domains calls into question the usefulness of listening comprehension tests whose input is limited only to a native speaker variety. This study investigated the impact of non-native varieties or accented English speech on test takers from three different English use…

Accent Identification by Adults with Aphasia

Science.gov (United States)

Newton, Caroline; Burns, Rebecca; Bruce, Carolyn

2013-01-01

The UK is a diverse society where individuals regularly interact with speakers with different accents. Whilst there is a growing body of research on the impact of speaker accent on comprehension in people with aphasia, there is none which explores their ability to identify accents. This study investigated the ability of this group to identify the…

Does seeing an Asian face make speech sound more accented?

Science.gov (United States)

Zheng, Yi; Samuel, Arthur G

2017-08-01

Prior studies have reported that seeing an Asian face makes American English sound more accented. The current study investigates whether this effect is perceptual, or if it instead occurs at a later decision stage. We first replicated the finding that showing static Asian and Caucasian faces can shift people's reports about the accentedness of speech accompanying the pictures. When we changed the static pictures to dubbed videos, reducing the demand characteristics, the shift in reported accentedness largely disappeared. By including unambiguous items along with the original ambiguous items, we introduced a contrast bias and actually reversed the shift, with the Asian-face videos yielding lower judgments of accentedness than the Caucasian-face videos. By changing to a mixed rather than blocked design, so that the ethnicity of the videos varied from trial to trial, we eliminated the difference in accentedness rating. Finally, we tested participants' perception of accented speech using the selective adaptation paradigm. After establishing that an auditory-only accented adaptor shifted the perception of how accented test words are, we found that no such adaptation effect occurred when the adapting sounds relied on visual information (Asian vs. Caucasian videos) to influence the accentedness of an ambiguous auditory adaptor. Collectively, the results demonstrate that visual information can affect the interpretation, but not the perception, of accented speech.

FOREIGN ACCENT PERCEPTION IN PROFESSIONAL DISCOURSE

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Tyurina, S.Yu.

2017-09-01

Full Text Available This paper examines the attitude to the accent in professional discourse. The paper focuses on linguistic approach to accent, thus, the communicative effect of accent in professional discourse is evaluated. Discourse is considered as one of the key concepts of contemporary thinking. The key goal is to study how native speaking and non-native speaking people evaluate the accents in professional sphere. The study is considered to have important implications due to academic and professional mobility. Both quantitative and qualitative methods to collect and analyze data were used. The results of the research may be interesting for phoneticians and ESP teachers.

Japanese Attitudes toward English Accents.

Science.gov (United States)

Chiba, Reiko; And Others

1995-01-01

Examined the attitudes of 169 Japanese university students toward varieties of spoken English. Results found that the students with more instrumental motivation were more positive toward nonnative English accents than those with less instrumental motivation, and that the students' familiarity with accents had an influence on their acceptance of…

A qualitative study of blood and marrow transplant patient experiences participating in art making and music listening.

Science.gov (United States)

Mische Lawson, Lisa; Wedan, Lindsay; Stock, Morgan; Glennon, Cathy

2016-06-01

To explore patient experiences of engaging in art making or music listening while receiving treatment in a blood and marrow transplant clinic. Researchers recruited 25 individuals receiving blood and marrow transplant (BMT) treatment, 12 men and 13 women aged 22 to 74, from a Midwestern outpatient BMT clinic. Participants engaged in a painting activity or listened to music on an iPad using an internet music application for one hour. Researchers interviewed participants after the one-hour activity to gain insight into participants' perceptions of the art making or music listening experience. Interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim, and independently coded by members of the research team. Researchers met on several occasions to analyse codes and agree on emerging themes. Nine themes emerged from the data including, Engaging in Activity, Art and Music in Daily Life, Expression, Engaging with Equipment, Novelty, BMT Process, Activity Process, Social Support, and Living Situation. Participants enjoyed art making and music listening and found the activities beneficial during treatment. Participants benefited from art making and music listening because these activities increased the variety of options available during treatment, allowed for self-expression, and could be done alone or with caregivers. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Accent detection and social cognition: evidence of protracted learning.

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Creel, Sarah C

2018-03-01

How and when do children become aware that speakers have different accents? While adults readily make a variety of subtle social inferences based on speakers' accents, findings from children are more mixed: while one line of research suggests that even infants may be acutely sensitive to accent unfamiliarity, other studies suggest that 5-year-olds have difficulty identifying accents as different from their own. In an attempt to resolve this paradox, the current study assesses American children's sensitivity to American vs. Dutch accents in two situations. First, in an eye-tracked sentence processing paradigm where children have previously shown sensitivity to a salient social distinction (gender) from voice cues, 3-5-year-old children showed no sensitivity to accent differences. Second, in a social decision-making task where accent sensitivity has been found in 5-year-olds, an age gradient appeared, suggesting that familiar accent preferences emerge slowly between 3 and 7 years. Counter to claims that accent is an early, salient signal of social group, results are more consistent with a protracted learning hypothesis that children need extended exposure to native-language sound patterns in order to detect that an accent deviates from their own. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQAgy3IFYXA. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

The effect of perceived regional accents on individual economic behavior: a lab experiment on linguistic performance, cognitive ratings and economic decisions.

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Stephan Heblich

Full Text Available Does it matter if you speak with a regional accent? Speaking immediately reveals something of one's own social and cultural identity, be it consciously or unconsciously. Perceiving accents involves not only reconstructing such imprints but also augmenting them with particular attitudes and stereotypes. Even though we know much about attitudes and stereotypes that are transmitted by, e.g. skin color, names or physical attractiveness, we do not yet have satisfactory answers how accent perception affects human behavior. How do people act in economically relevant contexts when they are confronted with regional accents? This paper reports a laboratory experiment where we address this question. Participants in our experiment conduct cognitive tests where they can choose to either cooperate or compete with a randomly matched male opponent identified only via his rendering of a standardized text in either a regional accent or standard accent. We find a strong connection between the linguistic performance and the cognitive rating of the opponent. When matched with an opponent who speaks the accent of the participant's home region--the in-group opponent--, individuals tend to cooperate significantly more often. By contrast, they are more likely to compete when matched with an accent speaker from outside their home region, the out-group opponent. Our findings demonstrate, firstly, that the perception of an out-group accent leads not only to social discrimination but also influences economic decisions. Secondly, they suggest that this economic behavior is not necessarily attributable to the perception of a regional accent per se, but rather to the social rating of linguistic distance and the in-group/out-group perception it evokes.

Listening to accented speech in a second language: First language and age of acquisition effects.

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Larraza, Saioa; Samuel, Arthur G; Oñederra, Miren Lourdes

2016-11-01

Bilingual speakers must acquire the phonemic inventory of 2 languages and need to recognize spoken words cross-linguistically; a demanding job potentially made even more difficult due to dialectal variation, an intrinsic property of speech. The present work examines how bilinguals perceive second language (L2) accented speech and where accommodation to dialectal variation takes place. Dialectal effects were analyzed at different levels: An AXB discrimination task tapped phonetic-phonological representations, an auditory lexical-decision task tested for effects in accessing the lexicon, and an auditory priming task looked for semantic processing effects. Within that central focus, the goal was to see whether perceptual adjustment at a given level is affected by 2 main linguistic factors: bilinguals' first language and age of acquisition of the L2. Taking advantage of the cross-linguistic situation of the Basque language, bilinguals with different first languages (Spanish or French) and ages of acquisition of Basque (simultaneous, early, or late) were tested. Our use of multiple tasks with multiple types of bilinguals demonstrates that in spite of very similar discrimination capacity, French-Basque versus Spanish-Basque simultaneous bilinguals' performance on lexical access significantly differed. Similarly, results of the early and late groups show that the mapping of phonetic-phonological information onto lexical representations is a more demanding process that accentuates non-native processing difficulties. L1 and AoA effects were more readily overcome in semantic processing; accented variants regularly created priming effects in the different groups of bilinguals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

In the Right Place at the Right Time: Asian English Accents in a Listening Test for Healthcare Professions

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Suebsook, Khwanchanok; Adunyarittigun, Dumrong

2016-01-01

The rise of medical tourism and the increasing number of international patients from Asian countries have led Thai healthcare professionals to serve a lot of Asian patients and to encounter a complexity of language use in their workplace. There is a necessity for these professionals to strive for an understanding of Asian accents spoken by the…

A Correlation Study between EFL Strategic Listening and Listening Comprehension Skills among Secondary School Students

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Amin, Iman Abdul-Reheem; Amin, Magdy Mohammad; Aly, Mahsoub Abdul-Sadeq

2011-01-01

The present study was undertaken to investigate the correlation between EFL students strategic listening and their listening comprehension skills. Eighty secondary school students participated in this study. Participants' strategic listening was measured by a Strategic Listening Interview (SLI), a Strategic Listening Questionnaire (SLQ) and a…

Malaysian University Students’ Attitudes towards Six Varieties of Accented Speech in English

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Zainab Thamer Ahmed

2014-10-01

Full Text Available Previous language attitude studies indicated that in many countries all over the world, English language learners perceived native accents either American or British, more positively than the non-native accents such as the Japanese, Korean, and Austrian accents. However, in Malaysia it is still unclear which accent Malaysian learners of English tend to perceive more positively (Pillai 2009. The verbal-guise technique and accent recognition item were adopted as indirect and direct instruments in gathering data to obtain data to clarify the inquiry. The sample includes 120 Malaysian university students and they were immersed in several speech accent situations to elicit feedback on their perceptions. Essentially two research questions are addressed: 1 What are Malaysian university students’ attitudes toward native and non-native English accents? 2 How familiar are students with accents?  The results indicated that the students had a bias towards in-group accent, meaning that they evaluated non-native lecturers’ accents more positively. These results supported the ‘social identity theory’ consistent with many previous language attitude studies of this nature. The Malaysian students were seen to be able to distinguish between native and non-native accents although there was much confusion between British and American accents.

The influence of talker and foreign-accent variability on spoken word identification.

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Bent, Tessa; Holt, Rachael Frush

2013-03-01

In spoken word identification and memory tasks, stimulus variability from numerous sources impairs performance. In the current study, the influence of foreign-accent variability on spoken word identification was evaluated in two experiments. Experiment 1 used a between-subjects design to test word identification in noise in single-talker and two multiple-talker conditions: multiple talkers with the same accent and multiple talkers with different accents. Identification performance was highest in the single-talker condition, but there was no difference between the single-accent and multiple-accent conditions. Experiment 2 further explored word recognition for multiple talkers in single-accent versus multiple-accent conditions using a mixed design. A detriment to word recognition was observed in the multiple-accent condition compared to the single-accent condition, but the effect differed across the language backgrounds tested. These results demonstrate that the processing of foreign-accent variation may influence word recognition in ways similar to other sources of variability (e.g., speaking rate or style) in that the inclusion of multiple foreign accents can result in a small but significant performance decrement beyond the multiple-talker effect.

Learning to listen: Listening Strategies and Listening Comprehension of Islamic Senior High School Students

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DESMA YULISA

2018-05-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this research was to identify the correlation and the influence between listening strategies and listening comprehension. The eleventh grade students were selected as participants of this study. The instruments used in this research were listening strategies questionaire adapted from Lee (1997 and modified by Ho (2006 (as cited Golchi, 2012, and listening comprehension test conducted to measure students’ listening comprehension. Pearson product moment, regression analysis, R-square were used to find out the correlation and the influence between variables. The result revealed that there was a significant correlation between listening strategies and listening comprehension with r = .516. Besides, there was also a significant influence of listening strategies on listening comprehension with 26.6 %. This study could have implications for English language teachers, course designers, learners, and text book writers.

The Effect of Metacognitive Listening Strategy Training on EFL Learners’ Listening Sub-skills Performance

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Hassan Dousti

2013-05-01

Full Text Available The aim of this study is to examine the impact of metacognitive listening strategy instruction on the listening sub-skills performance of the Iranian pre-intermediate EFL learners at the Foreign Language Center, Imam Ali University. The current study has been conducted with 64 participants. They were assigned into two groups randomly, an experimental group (n: 32 and a control group (n: 32. To determine the listening comprehension ability of the participants, a listening comprehension pretest based on the listening sub-skills was administered to the participants before the experiment. Then, the experimental group received an eight-week treatment on metacognitive listening strategies. After the treatment phase, a posttest was given to the participants in both the experimental and control group. The results of the independent t-test showed that there is a statistically significant difference (3.29>2; df = 62 between the posttest scores of the experimental group and the control group. Metacognitive strategy training promoted students’ listening comprehension remarkably; therefore, it should be integrated into the listening instruction programs to help language learners become more effective listeners.

Towards a semiotics of listening

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

van Leeuwen, Theo

2014-01-01

A study of listening as active participation, focusing on the use of listening shots in films and piano and drums accompaniment in jazz music......A study of listening as active participation, focusing on the use of listening shots in films and piano and drums accompaniment in jazz music...

Malaysian University Students' Attitudes towards Six Varieties of Accented Speech in English

Science.gov (United States)

Ahmed, Zainab Thamer; Abdullah, Ain Nadzimah; Heng, Chan Swee

2014-01-01

Previous language attitude studies indicated that in many countries all over the world, English language learners perceived native accents, either American or British, more positively than the non-native accents such as the Japanese, Korean, and Austrian accents. However, in Malaysia it is still unclear which accent Malaysian learners of English…

Two French-Speaking Cases of Foreign Accent Syndrome: An Acoustic-Phonetic Analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Roy, Johanna-Pascale; Macoir, Joel; Martel-Sauvageau, Vincent; Boudreault, Carol-Ann

2012-01-01

Foreign accent syndrome (FAS) is an acquired neurologic disorder in which an individual suddenly and unintentionally speaks with an accent which is perceived as being different from his/her usual accent. This study presents an acoustic-phonetic description of two Quebec French-speaking cases. The first speaker presents a perceived accent shift to…

Mindful Music Listening Instruction Increases Listening Sensitivity and Enjoyment

Science.gov (United States)

Anderson, William Todd

2016-01-01

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of mindful listening instruction on music listening sensitivity and music listening enjoyment. A pretest--posttest control group design was used. Participants, fourth-grade students (N = 42) from an elementary school in a large city in the Northeastern United States, were randomly assigned to two…

Danish-accented Chinese

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Wang, Lei; Sloos, Marjoleine 莱娜; Zhang, Chun

In search for a linguistic basis for the education of Chinese as a foreign language CFL in Denmark, we set up a new line of investigation into CFL. This research focuses on the phonetics and phonology of Mandarin Chinese as compared to Danish. Considering the sound systems of both languages, we......-ba /pha pa/ ta-da /tha ta/ ka-ga / kha-ka/ For L2 acquisition it is held that same and new phonemes are (relatively) easy acquired, whereas similar but not identical sounds are difficult to learn. New sounds are initially mapped onto the L1 phoneme inventory (Kuhl 1991). For Danish, this would predict...... instruction, which pitch contours do the Danish learners of Chinese use on neutral tones and to what extent does their production match that of native speakers? Future research may include Norwegian and Swedish-accented Chinese and a comparison between the different Germanic accents of CFL. Reference Kuhl, P...

Foreign Language Listening Anxiety and Listening Performance: Conceptualizations and Causal Relationships

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Zhang, Xian

2013-01-01

This study used structural equation modeling to explore the possible causal relations between foreign language (English) listening anxiety and English listening performance. Three hundred participants learning English as a foreign language (FL) completed the foreign language listening anxiety scale (FLLAS) and IELTS test twice with an interval of…

Bilingual and Monolingual Children Prefer Native-Accented Speakers

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Andre L. eSouza

2013-12-01

Full Text Available Adults and young children prefer to affiliate with some individuals rather than others. Studies have shown that monolingual children show in-group biases for individuals who speak their native language without a foreign accent (Kinzler, Dupoux, & Spelke, 2007. Some studies have suggested that bilingual children are less influenced than monolinguals by language variety when attributing personality traits to different speakers (Anisfeld & Lambert, 1964, which could indicate that bilinguals have fewer in-group biases and perhaps greater social flexibility. However, no previous studies have compared monolingual and bilingual children’s reactions to speakers with unfamiliar foreign accents. In the present study, we investigated the social preferences of 5-year-old English and French monolinguals and English-French bilinguals. Contrary to our predictions, both monolingual and bilingual preschoolers preferred to be friends with native-accented speakers over speakers who spoke their dominant language with an unfamiliar foreign accent. This result suggests that both monolingual and bilingual children have strong preferences for in-group members who use a familiar language variety, and that bilingualism does not lead to generalized social flexibility.

Bilingual and monolingual children prefer native-accented speakers.

Science.gov (United States)

Souza, André L; Byers-Heinlein, Krista; Poulin-Dubois, Diane

2013-01-01

Adults and young children prefer to affiliate with some individuals rather than others. Studies have shown that monolingual children show in-group biases for individuals who speak their native language without a foreign accent (Kinzler et al., 2007). Some studies have suggested that bilingual children are less influenced than monolinguals by language variety when attributing personality traits to different speakers (Anisfeld and Lambert, 1964), which could indicate that bilinguals have fewer in-group biases and perhaps greater social flexibility. However, no previous studies have compared monolingual and bilingual children's reactions to speakers with unfamiliar foreign accents. In the present study, we investigated the social preferences of 5-year-old English and French monolinguals and English-French bilinguals. Contrary to our predictions, both monolingual and bilingual preschoolers preferred to be friends with native-accented speakers over speakers who spoke their dominant language with an unfamiliar foreign accent. This result suggests that both monolingual and bilingual children have strong preferences for in-group members who use a familiar language variety, and that bilingualism does not lead to generalized social flexibility.

Who's Listening to Victims? Nurses' Listening Styles and Domestic Violence Screening

Science.gov (United States)

Chapin, John; Froats, Ted, Jr.; Hudspeth, Trey

2013-01-01

The current study applies the Listening Styles Profile (LSP16) to nurses and nursing students. Compared to a control group (n = 102), nurses (n = 188) and nursing students (n = 206) show marked differences in listening styles. The majority of participants were people-oriented listeners. People-oriented nurses tend to be more knowledgeable about…

Automatically identifying characteristic features of non-native English accents

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bloem, Jelke; Wieling, Martijn; Nerbonne, John; Côté, Marie-Hélène; Knooihuizen, Remco; Nerbonne, John

2016-01-01

In this work, we demonstrate the application of statistical measures from dialectometry to the study of accented English speech. This new methodology enables a more quantitative approach to the study of accents. Studies on spoken dialect data have shown that a combination of representativeness (the

Psychogenic Foreign Accent Syndrome: a new case

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Stefanie eKeulen

2016-04-01

Full Text Available This paper presents the case of a 33-year-old, right-handed, French-speaking Belgian lady who was involved in a car accident as a pedestrian. Six months after the incident she developed a German/Flemish-like accent. The patient’s medical history, the onset of the FAS and the possible psychological causes of the accent change are analyzed. Relevant neuropsychological, neurolinguistic and psychodiagnostic test results are presented and discussed. The psychodiagnostic interview and testing will receive special attention, because these have been underreported in previous FAS case reports. Furthermore, an accent rating experiment was carried out in order to assess the foreign quality of the patient’s speech. Pre- and post-morbid spontaneous speech samples were analyzed phonetically to identify the pronunciation characteristics associated with this type of FAS. Several findings were considered essential in the diagnosis of psychogenic FAS: the psychological assessments as well as the clinical interview confirmed the presence of psychological problems, while neurological damage was excluded by means of repeated neuroimaging and neurological examinations. The type and nature of the speech symptoms and the accent fluctuations associated with the patient's psychological state cannot be explained by a neurological disorder. Moreover, the indifference of the patient towards her condition may also suggest a psychogenic etiology, as the opposite is usually observed in neurogenic FAS patients.

What makes a rhythm complex? The influence of musical training and accent type on beat perception

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bouwer, F.L.; Burgoyne, J.A.; Odijk, D.; Honing, H.; Grahn, J.A.

2018-01-01

Perception of a regular beat in music is inferred from different types of accents. For example, increases in loudness cause intensity accents, and the grouping of time intervals in a rhythm creates temporal accents. Accents are expected to occur on the beat: when accents are “missing” on the beat,

A study of the effects of active listening on listening attitudes of middle managers.

Science.gov (United States)

Kubota, Shinya; Mishima, Norio; Nagata, Shoji

2004-01-01

The present study was conducted to clarify the direct effects of active listening (AL) training given to middle managers in a local government. Altogether, 345 middle managers participated in 13 AL training sessions over two years. We developed the Inventive Experiential Learning (IEL) method, and used it as the central training method in this study. To investigate how well the participants learned AL, we asked the middle managers to answer a shorter version of the Active Listening Attitude Scale (ALAS) consisting of two subscales-i.e. "Listening Attitude" and "Listening Skill"-before training, one month after and three months after training. Altogether, 284 middle managers answered the questionnaire three times. The scores of each subscale were analyzed by repeated measurement analysis of variance. The participants were divided into three groups using the percentile values of the original sample of ALAS, i.e. low-score group (-24%), medium-score group (25-75%) and high-score group (76%-), and the proportionate changes were examined. The results showed both the "Listening Attitude" and "Listening Skill" subscales increased significantly after training. Analysis of the percentiles showed that the proportion of the low-score group decreased and that of the high-score group increased in both subscales, from one to three months after training. These changes are considered to indicate that the participants have learned AL although they attended AL training for only one day.

A Short Note on Accent-Bias, Social Identity and Ethnocentrism

Science.gov (United States)

Chakraborty, Rahul

2017-01-01

This paper discusses the interrelations among accent-based biases, social identity and ethnocentrism. Construction of social identity creates a set of ethnocentric values within a person, which indirectly or directly plays a pivotal role in generating accent related biases. Starting with Tajfel's (1959) social identity theory and then the…

A Multi-Perspective Investigation of Attitudes towards English Accents in Hong Kong: Implications for Pronunciation Teaching

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Chan, Jim Y. H.

2016-01-01

The study reported in this article examined Hong Kong students' attitudes towards English accents from three interrelated perspectives: (1) their awareness of accents, (2) their perception of accents in relation to the dimensions of status and solidarity, and (3) their choice of accents in various local language-using contexts. By means of the…

Processing and Comprehension of Accented Speech by Monolingual and Bilingual Children

Science.gov (United States)

McDonald, Margarethe; Gross, Megan; Buac, Milijana; Batko, Michelle; Kaushanskaya, Margarita

2018-01-01

This study tested the effect of Spanish-accented speech on sentence comprehension in children with different degrees of Spanish experience. The hypothesis was that earlier acquisition of Spanish would be associated with enhanced comprehension of Spanish-accented speech. Three groups of 5-6-year-old children were tested: monolingual…

The Relationship between Listening Strategies Used by Egyptian EFL College Sophomores and Their Listening Comprehension and Self-Efficacy

Science.gov (United States)

Kassem, Hassan M.

2015-01-01

The present study explored listening strategy use among a group of Egyptian EFL college sophomores (N = 84). More specifically, it aimed to identify 1) the strategies used more often by participants, 2) the relationship between listening strategy use, and listening comprehension and self-efficacy, and 3) differences in listening comprehension and…

Listening Niches across a Century of Popular Music

Science.gov (United States)

Krumhansl, Carol Lynne

2017-01-01

This article investigates the contexts, or “listening niches”, in which people hear popular music. The study spanned a century of popular music, divided into 10 decades, with participants born between 1940 and 1999. It asks about whether they know and like the music in each decade, and their emotional reactions. It also asks whether the music is associated with personal memories and, if so, with whom they were listening, or whether they were listening alone. Finally, it asks what styles of music they were listening to, and the music media they were listening with, in different periods of their lives. The results show a regular progression through the life span of listening with different individuals (from parents to children) and with different media (from records to streaming services). A number of effects found in previous studies were replicated, but the study also showed differences across the birth cohorts. Overall, there was a song specific age effect with preferences for music of late adolescence and early adulthood; however, this effect was stronger for the older participants. In general, music of the 1940s, 1960s, and 1980s was preferred, particularly among younger participants. Music of these decades also produced the strongest emotional responses, and the most frequent and specific personal memories. When growing up, the participants tended to listen to the older music on the older media, but rapidly shifted to the new music technologies in their late teens and early 20s. Younger listeners are currently listening less to music alone than older listeners, suggesting an important role of socially sharing music, but they also report feeling sadder when listening to music. Finally, the oldest listeners had the broadest taste, liking music that they had been exposed to during their lifetimes in different listening niches. PMID:28424637

The Effect of a Listening Education Course on the Listening Behaviors of Prospective Turkish Teachers

Science.gov (United States)

Aytan, Talat

2016-01-01

This study aims to determine the effect of a listening education course on the listening behaviors of prospective Turkish teachers. The participants of the study are 45 prospective teachers who are studying at a state university in Istanbul and taking a listening education course. The study is an experimental study in the model of "one group…

Student's Second-Language Grade May Depend on Classroom Listening Position.

Science.gov (United States)

Hurtig, Anders; Sörqvist, Patrik; Ljung, Robert; Hygge, Staffan; Rönnberg, Jerker

2016-01-01

The purpose of this experiment was to explore whether listening positions (close or distant location from the sound source) in the classroom, and classroom reverberation, influence students' score on a test for second-language (L2) listening comprehension (i.e., comprehension of English in Swedish speaking participants). The listening comprehension test administered was part of a standardized national test of English used in the Swedish school system. A total of 125 high school pupils, 15 years old, participated. Listening position was manipulated within subjects, classroom reverberation between subjects. The results showed that L2 listening comprehension decreased as distance from the sound source increased. The effect of reverberation was qualified by the participants' baseline L2 proficiency. A shorter reverberation was beneficial to participants with high L2 proficiency, while the opposite pattern was found among the participants with low L2 proficiency. The results indicate that listening comprehension scores-and hence students' grade in English-may depend on students' classroom listening position.

Psychogenic or neurogenic origin of agrammatism and foreign accent syndrome in a bipolar patient: a case report

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fossard Marion

2007-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Foreign accent syndrome (FAS is a rare speech disorder characterized by the appearance of a new accent, different from the speaker's native language and perceived as foreign by the speaker and the listener. In most of the reported cases, FAS follows stroke but has also been found following traumatic brain injury, cerebral haemorrhage and multiple sclerosis. In very few cases, FAS was reported in patients presenting with psychiatric disorders but the link between this condition and FAS was confirmed in only one case. Case presentation In this report, we present the case of FG, a bipolar patient presenting with language disorders characterized by a foreign accent and agrammatism, initially categorized as being of psychogenic origin. The patient had an extensive neuropsychological and language evaluation as well as brain imaging exams. In addition to FAS and agrammatism, FG also showed a working memory deficit and executive dysfunction. Moreover, these clinical signs were related to altered cerebral activity on an FDG-PET scan that showed diffuse hypometabolism in the frontal, parietal and temporal lobes bilaterally as well as a focal deficit in the area of the anterior left temporal lobe. When compared to the MRI, these deficits were related to asymmetric atrophy, which was retrospectively seen in the left temporal and frontal opercular/insular region without a focal lesion. Discussion To our knowledge, FG is the first case of FAS imaged with an 18F-FDG-PET scan. The nature and type of neuropsychological and linguistic deficits, supported by neuroimaging data, exclude a neurotoxic or neurodegenerative origin for this patient's clinical manifestations. For similar reasons, a psychogenic etiology is also highly improbable. Conclusion To account for the FAS and agrammatism in FG, various explanations have been ruled out. Because of the focal deficit seen on the brain imaging, involving the left insular and anterior temporal cortex

Psychogenic or neurogenic origin of agrammatism and foreign accent syndrome in a bipolar patient: a case report.

Science.gov (United States)

Poulin, Stéphane; Macoir, Joël; Paquet, Nancy; Fossard, Marion; Gagnon, Louis

2007-01-04

Foreign accent syndrome (FAS) is a rare speech disorder characterized by the appearance of a new accent, different from the speaker's native language and perceived as foreign by the speaker and the listener. In most of the reported cases, FAS follows stroke but has also been found following traumatic brain injury, cerebral haemorrhage and multiple sclerosis. In very few cases, FAS was reported in patients presenting with psychiatric disorders but the link between this condition and FAS was confirmed in only one case. In this report, we present the case of FG, a bipolar patient presenting with language disorders characterized by a foreign accent and agrammatism, initially categorized as being of psychogenic origin. The patient had an extensive neuropsychological and language evaluation as well as brain imaging exams. In addition to FAS and agrammatism, FG also showed a working memory deficit and executive dysfunction. Moreover, these clinical signs were related to altered cerebral activity on an FDG-PET scan that showed diffuse hypometabolism in the frontal, parietal and temporal lobes bilaterally as well as a focal deficit in the area of the anterior left temporal lobe. When compared to the MRI, these deficits were related to asymmetric atrophy, which was retrospectively seen in the left temporal and frontal opercular/insular region without a focal lesion. To our knowledge, FG is the first case of FAS imaged with an 18F-FDG-PET scan. The nature and type of neuropsychological and linguistic deficits, supported by neuroimaging data, exclude a neurotoxic or neurodegenerative origin for this patient's clinical manifestations. For similar reasons, a psychogenic etiology is also highly improbable. To account for the FAS and agrammatism in FG, various explanations have been ruled out. Because of the focal deficit seen on the brain imaging, involving the left insular and anterior temporal cortex, two brain regions frequently involved in aphasic syndrome but also in FAS, a

A listening test system for automotive audio - listeners

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Choisel, Sylvain; Hegarty, Patrick; Christensen, Flemming

2007-01-01

A series of experiments was conducted in order to validate an experimental procedure to perform listening tests on car audio systems in a simulation of the car environment in a laboratory, using binaural synthesis with head-tracking. Seven experts and 40 non-expert listeners rated a range...... of stimuli for 15 sound-quality attributes developed by the experts. This paper presents a comparison between the attribute ratings from the two groups of participants. Overall preference of the non-experts was also measured using direct ratings as well as indirect scaling based on paired comparisons...

Role of Active Listening and Listening Effort on Contralateral Suppression of Transient Evoked Otoacousic Emissions.

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Kalaiah, Mohan Kumar; Theruvan, Nikhitha B; Kumar, Kaushlendra; Bhat, Jayashree S

2017-04-01

The present study aimed to investigate the effect of active listening and listening effort on the contralateral suppression of transient evoked otoacoustic emissions (CSTEOAEs). Twenty eight young adults participated in the study. Transient evoked otoacoustic emissions (TEOAEs) were recorded using 'linear' clicks at 60 dB peSPL, in three contralateral noise conditions. In condition 1, TEOAEs were obtained in the presence of white noise in the contralateral ear. While, in condition 2, speech was embedded into white noise at +3, -3, and -9 dB signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and delivered to the contralateral ear. The SNR was varied to investigate the effect of listening effort on the CSTEOAE. In condition 3, speech was played backwards and embedded into white noise at -3 dB SNR. The conditions 1 and 3 served as passive listening condition and the condition 2 served as active listening condition. In active listening condition, the participants categorized the words in to two groups (e.g., animal and vehicle). CSTEOAE was found to be largest in the presence of white noise, and the amount of CSTEOAE was not significantly different between active and passive listening conditions (condition 2 and 3). Listening effort had an effect on the CSTEOAE, the amount of suppression increased with listening effort, when SNR was decreased from +3 dB to -3 dB. However, when the SNR was further reduced to -9 dB, there was no further increase in the amount of CSTEOAE, instead there was a reduction in the amount of suppression. The findings of the present study show that listening effort might affect CSTEOAE.

Using Video in Web-Based Listening Tests

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Cristina Pardo-Ballester

2016-07-01

Full Text Available With sophisticated multimedia technology, there is a renewed interest in the relationship between visual and auditory channels in assessing listening comprehension (LC. Research on the use of visuals in assessing listening has emerged with inconclusive results. Some learners perform better on tests which include visual input (Wagner, 2007 while others have found no difference in the performance of participants on the two test formats (Batty, 2015. These mixed results make it necessary to examine the role of using audio and video in LC as measured by L2 listening tests. The current study examined the effects of two different types of listening support on L2 learners’ comprehension: (a visual aid in a video with input modified with redundancy and (b no visuals (audio-only input with input modified with redundancy. The participants of this study included 246 Spanish students enrolled in two different intermediate Spanish courses at a large Midwestern university who participated in four listening tasks either with video or with audio. Findings of whether the video serves as a listening support device and whether the course formats differ on intermediate-level Spanish learners’ comprehension will be shared as well as participants’ preferences with respect to listening support.

Visual cues and listening effort: individual variability.

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Picou, Erin M; Ricketts, Todd A; Hornsby, Benjamin W Y

2011-10-01

To investigate the effect of visual cues on listening effort as well as whether predictive variables such as working memory capacity (WMC) and lipreading ability affect the magnitude of listening effort. Twenty participants with normal hearing were tested using a paired-associates recall task in 2 conditions (quiet and noise) and 2 presentation modalities (audio only [AO] and auditory-visual [AV]). Signal-to-noise ratios were adjusted to provide matched speech recognition across audio-only and AV noise conditions. Also measured were subjective perceptions of listening effort and 2 predictive variables: (a) lipreading ability and (b) WMC. Objective and subjective results indicated that listening effort increased in the presence of noise, but on average the addition of visual cues did not significantly affect the magnitude of listening effort. Although there was substantial individual variability, on average participants who were better lipreaders or had larger WMCs demonstrated reduced listening effort in noise in AV conditions. Overall, the results support the hypothesis that integrating auditory and visual cues requires cognitive resources in some participants. The data indicate that low lipreading ability or low WMC is associated with relatively effortful integration of auditory and visual information in noise.

On the Relationship between the IELTS Listening and Listening in Academic English Programs

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Masood Khalili Sabet

2017-04-01

Full Text Available The challenge for many teachers teaching in academic English programs is, on the one hand, to actualize the objectives of their course and on the other hand, prepare their students for the important international tests such as IELTS and TOEFLE. The current study seeks to reconcile this challenge by drawing on the relationship between the IELTS listening and listening in academic English programs. The requirements of the two domains were compared through a semi – structured interview with five participating academic English instructors from two state universities of Iran. It was found that whilst IELTS listening bears a little bit of resemblance to the one aspect of academic listening - the literal understanding, there are also some very significant differences. The findings suggests that the type of listening the IELTS requires is different from academic listening in terms of pragmatic understanding, the integration of skills, multiplicity of texts for listening, information literacy and the concept of construct irrelevant variance. The findings also indicate the overall usefulness of the IELTS preparation practices within academic English courses.

Active Listening Strategies of Academically Successful University Students

OpenAIRE

Canpolat, Murat; Kuzu, Sekvan; Yıldırım, Bilal; CANPOLAT, Sevilay

2015-01-01

Problem Statement:In formal educational environments, the quality of student listening affects learning considerably. Students who areuninterested in a lesson listen reluctantly, wanting time to pass quickly andthe classto end as soon as possible. In such situations, students become passive and, thoughappearing to be listening, will not use listening strategies that promote productive and permanent learning. By contrast, when students willingly participate in lessonsby listening to instructor...

Listening Comprehension Performance Viewed in the Light of Emotional Intelligence and Foreign Language Listening Anxiety

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Valizadeh, Mohammad Reza; Alavinia, Parviz

2013-01-01

The researchers in the current study were after probing the potential relationship between emotional intelligence, foreign language listening anxiety (FLLA), and listening comprehension performance of Iranian EFL learners. To this end, 233 participants, studying English language and literature at three different Universities in Urmia, were…

A lighting metric for quantitative evaluation of accent lighting systems

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Acholo, Cyril O.; Connor, Kenneth A.; Radke, Richard J.

2014-09-01

Accent lighting is critical for artwork and sculpture lighting in museums, and subject lighting for stage, Film and television. The research problem of designing effective lighting in such settings has been revived recently with the rise of light-emitting-diode-based solid state lighting. In this work, we propose an easy-to-apply quantitative measure of the scene's visual quality as perceived by human viewers. We consider a well-accent-lit scene as one which maximizes the information about the scene (in an information-theoretic sense) available to the user. We propose a metric based on the entropy of the distribution of colors, which are extracted from an image of the scene from the viewer's perspective. We demonstrate that optimizing the metric as a function of illumination configuration (i.e., position, orientation, and spectral composition) results in natural, pleasing accent lighting. We use a photorealistic simulation tool to validate the functionality of our proposed approach, showing its successful application to two- and three-dimensional scenes.

Perceptual accent rating and attribution in psychogenic FAS: some further evidence challenging Whitaker’s operational definition.

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Stefanie eKeulen

2016-03-01

Full Text Available A 40-year-old, non-aphasic, right-handed, and polyglot (L1: French, L2: Dutch, L3: English woman with a 12 year history of addiction to opiates and psychoactive substances, and clear psychiatric problems, presented with a foreign accent of sudden onset in L1. Speech evolved towards a mostly fluent output, despite a stutter-like behavior and a marked grammatical output disorder. The psychogenic etiology of the accent foreignness was construed based upon the patient’s complex medical history, and psychodiagnostic, neuropsychological, and neurolinguistic assessments. The presence of a foreign accent was affirmed by a perceptual accent rating and attribution experiment. It is argued that this patient provides additional evidence demonstrating the outdatedness of Whitaker’s (1982 definition of Foreign Accent Syndrome, as only one of the four operational criteria was unequivocally applicable to our patient: her accent foreignness was not only recognized by her relatives and the medical staff, but also by a group of native French-speaking laymen. However, our patient defied the three remaining criteria, as central nervous system damage could not conclusively be demonstrated, psychodiagnostic assessment raised the hypothesis of a conversion disorder, and the patient was a polyglot whose newly gained accent was associated with a range of foreign languages, which exceeded the ones she spoke.

Student’s Second-Language Grade May Depend on Classroom Listening Position

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Sörqvist, Patrik; Ljung, Robert; Hygge, Staffan; Rönnberg, Jerker

2016-01-01

The purpose of this experiment was to explore whether listening positions (close or distant location from the sound source) in the classroom, and classroom reverberation, influence students’ score on a test for second-language (L2) listening comprehension (i.e., comprehension of English in Swedish speaking participants). The listening comprehension test administered was part of a standardized national test of English used in the Swedish school system. A total of 125 high school pupils, 15 years old, participated. Listening position was manipulated within subjects, classroom reverberation between subjects. The results showed that L2 listening comprehension decreased as distance from the sound source increased. The effect of reverberation was qualified by the participants’ baseline L2 proficiency. A shorter reverberation was beneficial to participants with high L2 proficiency, while the opposite pattern was found among the participants with low L2 proficiency. The results indicate that listening comprehension scores—and hence students’ grade in English—may depend on students’ classroom listening position. PMID:27304980

The Effect of Teaching Metacognitive Listening Strategy during Shadowing Activity on Field-Dependent and Field-Independent EFL Learners’ Listening Comprehension

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Parastoo Alizadeh Oghyanous

2017-11-01

Full Text Available This study aimed to compare the effect of teaching metacognitive listening strategies through shadowing activity on the listening comprehension of field-dependent (FD and field-independent (FI EFL learners. Since the researcher had access only to female participants,85 female EFL learners from a language institute in Tehran, at the pre-intermediate level of proficiency with the age range of 18-35 were selected out of the initial 120 participants based on their performance on a piloted PET. The Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT was administered to the selected participants in order to categorize them into the two experimental groups (49 FD and 36 FI. The participants including both FD and FI sat in several classes. During a five-week instruction period (twice a week, both groups practiced listening comprehension for 45 minutes through a combination of shadowing activity, and metacognitive strategy instruction with no difference in treatment. The results of the independent samples t-test demonstrated that there was no significant difference between listening posttest scores of FI and FD groups. Therefore, it was concluded that metacognitive strategy training coupled with shadowing activity could be equally beneficial in terms of listening proficiency for all students regardless of their perceptual tendency (FD/FI. The findings of the present study have implications for language teachers regarding metacognitive strategy training and listening comprehension enhancement.

Teachers' practices and perceptions regarding listening strategies, and perceptions of difficulties likely to arise in English listening comprehension lessons

OpenAIRE

Yükselci, Sema

2003-01-01

Cataloged from PDF version of article. Students at English-medium universities (EMUs) in Turkey need to develop strategic listening abilities to prepare for English-medium content instruction. Listening strategies need to be taught because they help learners deal with incoming speech, particularly when comprehension is not complete. This study aimed to explore the extent to which teacher participants (a) incorporate listening strategies into teaching listening (b) perceive l...

The invisible minority: revisiting the debate on foreign-accented speakers and upward mobility in the workplace.

Science.gov (United States)

Akomolafe, Soji

2013-01-01

Of some of the major types of discrimination, the one that gets the least attention is national origin discrimination and in particular, accent discrimination, especially when it comes to upward mobility in the workplace. Yet, unlike other forms of discrimination, accent discrimination is rarely a subject of any robust public debate. This paper is a modest attempt to help establish a framework for understanding the relative neglect to which the discourse on accent discrimination has been subjected vis-a-vis the overall national debate on diversity. Hopefully, in the process, it will stimulate a more robust conversation on the plight of foreign-accented speakers.

Impacts of Authentic Listening Tasks upon Listening Anxiety and Listening Comprehension

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Melanlioglu, Deniz

2013-01-01

Although listening is the skill mostly used by students in the classrooms, the desired success cannot be attained in teaching listening since this skill is shaped by multiple variables. In this research we focused on listening anxiety, listening comprehension and impact of authentic tasks on both listening anxiety and listening comprehension.…

(Criative Listening: proposals for the development of music listening in basic education

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Helena Lopes da Silva

2017-01-01

Full Text Available During the years 2015 and 2016 we coordinated a research entitled Mediated and expanded listening for high school music classes: Dialogues between Murray Schafer and Luciano Berio, which proposed structuring methodological approaches to develop and expand the musical listening of young people who are at school having as a start point the dialogue between listening strategies proposed by Murray Schafer and the work of Luciano Berio. For the construction of a pedagogical-musical approach centered on listening the teaching strategies to expand the listening proposed by Schafer (2011 were mapped as well as four musical pieces by the composer Luciano Berio were analyzed. Our hypothesis was that the use of the teaching strategies proposed by Schafer for the active appreciation of Berio repertoire could enhance the development of a renewed musical listening, which would require from the students and the teacher an extension or a expansion of concepts of what they understand by «music». The results showed that the young participants expressed interest in the contemporary repertoire as they were being instrumentalized by the developed mediation activities. Mediation was carried out through active listening proposals through creative action on the sounds around us and on the selected repertoire. The experience of listening to music is a creative activity and has intensive demands on your exercise. It is an inner process of knowledge and discovery that should be considered central in the training of music teachers.

Effect of Accent and Dialect on Employability

Science.gov (United States)

Carlson, Holly K.; McHenry, Monica A.

2006-01-01

This study was designed to determine how ethnicity, the amount of perceived accent or dialect, and comprehensibility affect a speaker's employability. Sixty human resource specialists judged 3 female potential applicants. The applicants represented speakers of Spanish-influenced English, Asian-influenced English, and African American Vernacular…

The Conflation of /l/ and /r/: New Zealand Perceptions of Japanese-Accented English

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Watanabe, Yutai

2017-01-01

As a case study of non-linguists' perceptions of accent, this paper investigates how accurately and on what basis Japanese-accented English (JAE) is discernible from other L2 varieties of English in New Zealand (NZ). The paper sheds light on how a feature salient in speech is associated with the perceived sociolinguistic identity of speakers. An…

The effect of hearing aid noise reduction on listening effort in hearing-impaired adults.

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Desjardins, Jamie L; Doherty, Karen A

2014-01-01

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effect of a noise-reduction (NR) algorithm on the listening effort hearing-impaired participants expend on a speech in noise task. Twelve hearing-impaired listeners fitted with behind-the-ear hearing aids with a fast-acting modulation-based NR algorithm participated in this study. A dual-task paradigm was used to measure listening effort with and without the NR enabled in the hearing aid. The primary task was a sentence-in-noise task presented at fixed overall speech performance levels of 76% (moderate listening condition) and 50% (difficult listening condition) correct performance, and the secondary task was a visual-tracking test. Participants also completed measures of working memory (Reading Span test), and processing speed (Digit Symbol Substitution Test) ability. Participants' speech recognition in noise scores did not significantly change with the NR algorithm activated in the hearing aid in either listening condition. The NR algorithm significantly decreased listening effort, but only in the more difficult listening condition. Last, there was a tendency for participants with faster processing speeds to expend less listening effort with the NR algorithm when listening to speech in background noise in the difficult listening condition. The NR algorithm reduced the listening effort adults with hearing loss must expend to understand speech in noise.

The neural underpinnings of music listening under different attention conditions.

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Jäncke, Lutz; Leipold, Simon; Burkhard, Anja

2018-05-02

Most studies examining the neural underpinnings of music listening have no specific instruction on how to process the presented musical pieces. In this study, we explicitly manipulated the participants' focus of attention while they listened to the musical pieces. We used an ecologically valid experimental setting by presenting the musical stimuli simultaneously with naturalistic film sequences. In one condition, the participants were instructed to focus their attention on the musical piece (attentive listening), whereas in the second condition, the participants directed their attention to the film sequence (passive listening). We used two instrumental musical pieces: an electronic pop song, which was a major hit at the time of testing, and a classical musical piece. During music presentation, we measured electroencephalographic oscillations and responses from the autonomic nervous system (heart rate and high-frequency heart rate variability). During passive listening to the pop song, we found strong event-related synchronizations in all analyzed frequency bands (theta, lower alpha, upper alpha, lower beta, and upper beta). The neurophysiological responses during attentive listening to the pop song were similar to those of the classical musical piece during both listening conditions. Thus, the focus of attention had a strong influence on the neurophysiological responses to the pop song, but not on the responses to the classical musical piece. The electroencephalographic responses during passive listening to the pop song are interpreted as a neurophysiological and psychological state typically observed when the participants are 'drawn into the music'.

When speaker identity is unavoidable: Neural processing of speaker identity cues in natural speech.

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Tuninetti, Alba; Chládková, Kateřina; Peter, Varghese; Schiller, Niels O; Escudero, Paola

2017-11-01

Speech sound acoustic properties vary largely across speakers and accents. When perceiving speech, adult listeners normally disregard non-linguistic variation caused by speaker or accent differences, in order to comprehend the linguistic message, e.g. to correctly identify a speech sound or a word. Here we tested whether the process of normalizing speaker and accent differences, facilitating the recognition of linguistic information, is found at the level of neural processing, and whether it is modulated by the listeners' native language. In a multi-deviant oddball paradigm, native and nonnative speakers of Dutch were exposed to naturally-produced Dutch vowels varying in speaker, sex, accent, and phoneme identity. Unexpectedly, the analysis of mismatch negativity (MMN) amplitudes elicited by each type of change shows a large degree of early perceptual sensitivity to non-linguistic cues. This finding on perception of naturally-produced stimuli contrasts with previous studies examining the perception of synthetic stimuli wherein adult listeners automatically disregard acoustic cues to speaker identity. The present finding bears relevance to speech normalization theories, suggesting that at an unattended level of processing, listeners are indeed sensitive to changes in fundamental frequency in natural speech tokens. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Listening to classical music ameliorates unilateral neglect after stroke.

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Tsai, Pei-Luen; Chen, Mei-Ching; Huang, Yu-Ting; Lin, Keh-Chung; Chen, Kuan-Lin; Hsu, Yung-Wen

2013-01-01

OBJECTIVE. We determined whether listening to excerpts of classical music ameliorates unilateral neglect (UN) in stroke patients. METHOD. In this within-subject study, we recruited and separately tested 16 UN patients with a right-hemisphere stroke under three conditions within 1 wk. In each condition, participants were asked to complete three subtests of the Behavioral Inattention Test while listening to classical music, white noise, or nothing. All conditions and the presentation of the tests were counterbalanced across participants. Visual analog scales were used to provide self-reported ratings of arousal and mood. RESULTS. Participants generally had the highest scores under the classical music condition and the lowest scores under the silence condition. In addition, most participants rated their arousal as highest after listening to classical music. CONCLUSION. Listening to classical music may improve visual attention in stroke patients with UN. Future research with larger study populations is necessary to validate these findings. Copyright © 2013 by the American Occupational Therapy Association, Inc.

Understanding Speaker-Listener Interaction

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Heylen, Dirk K.J.

2009-01-01

We provide an eclectic generic framework to understand the back and forth interactions between participants in a conversation highlighting the complexity of the actions that listeners are engaged in. Communicative actions of one participant implicate the “other��? in many ways. In this paper, we try

An Investigation of the Use of Listening Strategies and Listening Performance of Proficient and Nonproficient Language Learners

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Piamsai, Chatraporn

2014-01-01

This study was an attempt to investigate how proficient and non-proficient learners used listening strategies to complete a listening task. 65 third-year Chulalongkorn University Commerce and Accountancy students participated in the first stage of the quantitative data collection. 18 students were randomly selected from the group for more in depth…

The importance of a near-native accent. : Do the Dutch speak English or Double Dutch?

NARCIS (Netherlands)

drs. Frans Hermans

2014-01-01

The importance of a near-native accent. This talk will discuss whether or not it is important for EFL-teachers to try and achieve a near-native generally accepted accent for their students. The focus will be on the credibility of non-native speakers of English while speaking English in a

How do location and control over the music influence listeners' responses?

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Krause, Amanda E; North, Adrian C

2017-04-01

This study uses Mehrabian and Russell's () Pleasure-Arousal-Dominance (PAD) model to consider how responses to both the music heard and overall in-situ listening experience are influenced by the listener's degree of control over music selected for a particular listening episode and the location in which the listening takes place. Following recruitment via campus advertisements and a university research participation program, 216 individuals completed a background questionnaire and music listening task in a 3 (location) × 2 (experimenter- or participant-selected music) design. After the listening task, participants completed a short questionnaire concerning the music they heard and the overall in-situ listening experience. Results demonstrated that there was a positive relationship between control and liking for the music and episode, whether the former was considered in terms of: (1) whether the music was self-selected or experimenter-selected or (2) overt ratings of perceived control. Furthermore, the location and liking for the music were related to people's judgments of their enjoyment of the overall experience. This research indicates that the PAD model is a useful framework for understanding everyday music listening and supports the contention that, in a musical context, dominance may be operationalized as control over the music. © 2017 Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Factors Affecting Sentence-in-Noise Recognition for Normal Hearing Listeners and Listeners with Hearing Loss.

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Hwang, Jung Sun; Kim, Kyung Hyun; Lee, Jae Hee

2017-07-01

Despite amplified speech, listeners with hearing loss often report more difficulties understanding speech in background noise compared to normalhearing listeners. Various factors such as deteriorated hearing sensitivity, age, suprathreshold temporal resolution, and reduced capacity of working memory and attention can attribute to their sentence-in-noise problems. The present study aims to determine a primary explanatory factor for sentence-in-noise recognition difficulties in adults with or without hearing loss. Forty normal-hearing (NH) listeners (23-73 years) and thirty-four hearing-impaired (HI) listeners (24-80 years) participated for experimental testing. For both NH and HI group, the younger, middle-aged, older listeners were included. The sentence recognition score in noise was measured at 0 dB signal-to-noise ratio. The ability of temporal resolution was evaluated by gap detection performance using the Gaps-In-Noise test. Listeners' short-term auditory working memory span was measured by forward and backward digit spans. Overall, the HI listeners' sentence-in-noise recognition, temporal resolution abilities, and digit forward and backward spans were poorer compared to the NH listeners. Both NH and HI listeners had a substantial variability in performance. For NH listeners, only the digit backward span explained a small proportion of the variance in their sentence-in-noise performance. For the HI listeners, all the performance was influenced by age, and their sentence-in-noise difficulties were associated with various factors such as high-frequency hearing sensitivity, suprathreshold temporal resolution abilities, and working memory span. For the HI listeners, the critical predictors of the sentence-in-noise performance were composite measures of peripheral hearing sensitivity and suprathreshold temporal resolution abilities. The primary explanatory factors for the sentence-in-noise recognition performance differ between NH and HI listeners. Factors

Acquisition of stress and pitch accent in English-Spanish bilingual children

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Sahyang; Andruski, Jean; Nathan, Geoffrey S.; Casielles, Eugenia; Work, Richard

2005-09-01

Although understanding of prosodic development is considered crucial for understanding of language acquisition in general, few studies have focused on how children develop native-like prosody in their speech production. This study will examine the acquisition of lexical stress and postlexical pitch accent in two English-Spanish bilingual children. Prosodic characteristics of English and Spanish are different in terms of frequent stress patterns (trochaic versus penultimate), phonetic realization of stress (reduced unstressed vowel versus full unstressed vowel), and frequent pitch accent types (H* versus L*+H), among others. Thus, English-Spanish bilingual children's prosodic development may provide evidence of their awareness of language differences relatively early during language development, and illustrate the influence of markedness or input frequency in prosodic acquisition. For this study, recordings from the children's one-word stage are used. Durations of stressed and unstressed syllables and F0 peak alignment are measured, and pitch accent types in different accentual positions (nuclear versus prenuclear) are transcribed using American English ToBI and Spanish ToBI. Prosodic development is compared across ages within each language and across languages at each age. Furthermore, the bilingual children's productions are compared with monolingual English and Spanish parents' productions.

Role of Active Listening and Listening Effort on Contralateral Suppression of Transient Evoked Otoacousic Emissions

OpenAIRE

Kalaiah, Mohan Kumar; Theruvan, Nikhitha B; Kumar, Kaushlendra; Bhat, Jayashree S

2017-01-01

Background and Objectives The present study aimed to investigate the effect of active listening and listening effort on the contralateral suppression of transient evoked otoacoustic emissions (CSTEOAEs). Subjects and Methods Twenty eight young adults participated in the study. Transient evoked otoacoustic emissions (TEOAEs) were recorded using ?linear? clicks at 60 dB peSPL, in three contralateral noise conditions. In condition 1, TEOAEs were obtained in the presence of white noise in the con...

Why do we listen to music? A uses and gratifications analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Lonsdale, Adam J; North, Adrian C

2011-02-01

Four 'uses and gratifications' studies investigated peoples' reasons for listening to music (Study 1); and whether these reasons differ significantly from those associated with other leisure activities (Study 2). In Study 3, an open-ended, qualitative research design was used to investigate why people listen to music. In Study 4, a cross-sectional design was used to investigate the possibility that people of different ages might listen to music for different reasons. Findings showed that there are a number of reasons why participants listen to music, comparison of which indicated that participants listen to music primarily to manage/regulate their moods. Comparison with other leisure activities indicated that for the most part, listening to music was rated better than other leisure activities at serving an individual's different needs. This versatility may explain why music is so important to people. Evidence was also found to suggest that the reasons for listening to music may change as people grow older. ©2010 The British Psychological Society.

Effectiveness of radio spokesperson's gender, vocal pitch and accent and the use of music in radio advertising

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Josefa D. Martín-Santana

2015-07-01

Full Text Available The aim of this study is to analyze how certain voice features of radio spokespersons and background music influence the advertising effectiveness of a radio spot from the cognitive, affective and conative perspectives. We used a 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 experimental design in 16 different radio programs in which an ad hoc radio spot was inserted during advertising block. This ad changed according to combinations of spokesperson's gender (male–female, vocal pitch (low–high and accent (local–standard. In addition to these independent factors, the effect of background music in advertisements was also tested and compared with those that only had words. 987 regular radio listeners comprised the sample that was exposed to the radio program we created. Based on the differences in the levels of effectiveness in the tested voice features, our results suggest that the choice of the voice in radio advertising is one of the most important decisions an advertiser faces. Furthermore, the findings show that the inclusion of music does not always imply greater effectiveness.

Listeners' processing of a given reduced word pronunciation variant directly reflects their exposure to this variant: Evidence from native listeners and learners of French.

Science.gov (United States)

Brand, Sophie; Ernestus, Mirjam

2018-05-01

In casual conversations, words often lack segments. This study investigates whether listeners rely on their experience with reduced word pronunciation variants during the processing of single segment reduction. We tested three groups of listeners in a lexical decision experiment with French words produced either with or without word-medial schwa (e.g., /ʀvy/ and /ʀvy/ for revue). Participants also rated the relative frequencies of the two pronunciation variants of the words. If the recognition accuracy and reaction times (RTs) for a given listener group correlate best with the frequencies of occurrence holding for that given listener group, recognition is influenced by listeners' exposure to these variants. Native listeners' relative frequency ratings correlated well with their accuracy scores and RTs. Dutch advanced learners' accuracy scores and RTs were best predicted by their own ratings. In contrast, the accuracy and RTs from Dutch beginner learners of French could not be predicted by any relative frequency rating; the rating task was probably too difficult for them. The participant groups showed behaviour reflecting their difference in experience with the pronunciation variants. Our results strongly suggest that listeners store the frequencies of occurrence of pronunciation variants, and consequently the variants themselves.

Assessing the Watson-Barker Listening Test (WBLT)-Form C in Measuring Listening Comprehension of Post-Secondary Hispanic-American Students

Science.gov (United States)

Worthington, Debra L.; Keaton, Shaughan; Cook, John; Fitch-Hauser, Margaret; Powers, William G.

2014-01-01

The Watson-Barker Listening Test (WBLT) is one of the most popular measures of listening comprehension. However, participants in studies utilizing this scale have been almost exclusively Anglo-American. At the same time, previous research questions the psychometric properties of the test. This study addressed both of these issues by testing the…

"Not" Just Wanna Have Fun: Teaching Listening Skills with Songs

Science.gov (United States)

Abdullah, Amalia Qistina

2013-01-01

Teaching listening skills is very challenging to ESL teachers. It involves active participation from both teachers and students to ensure the objectives of teaching listening skills can be achieved. Hence, this presentation provides interesting and exciting strategies to teach listening skills using selected songs. It is hoped that this would…

An Advantage for Age? Self-Concept and Self-Regulation as Teachable Foundations in Second Language Accent

Science.gov (United States)

Moyer, Alene

2018-01-01

Age of onset has long been assumed to predict outcomes in second/foreign language accent. Yet beyond early childhood, acquiring a new accent has much to do with social-affective factors such as learner identity and motivation, as well as cognitive factors such as learning strategies (Pfenninger, 2017). Newer perspectives acknowledge this…

Variation in Music Player Listening Level as a Function of Campus Location.

Science.gov (United States)

Park, Yunea; Guercio, Diana; Ledon, Victoria; Le Prell, Colleen G

2017-04-01

There has been significant discussion in the literature regarding music player use by adolescents and young adults, including whether device use is driving an increase in hearing loss in these populations. While many studies report relatively safe preferred listening levels, some studies with college student participants have reported listening habits that may put individuals at risk for noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) if those listening habits continue over the long term. The goal of the current investigation was to extend listening level data collection sites from urban city settings studied by others to a more rural campus setting. This was a prospective study. Participants were 138 students on the University of Florida campus (94 males, 44 females), 18 years or older (mean = 21 years; range: 18-33 years). In this investigation, the current output level (listening level) was measured from personal listening devices used by students as they passed by a recruiting table located in one of three areas of the University of Florida campus. One location was in an open-air campus square; the other two locations were outside the campus recreation building ("gym") and outside the undergraduate library, with participants recruited as they exited the gym or library buildings. After providing written informed consent, participants completed a survey that included questions about demographics and typical listening habits (hours per day, days per week). The output level on their device was then measured using a "Jolene" mannequin. Average listening levels for participants at the three locations were as follows: gym: 85.9 ± 1.4 dBA; campus square: 83.3 ± 2.0 dBA; library: 76.9 ± 1.3 dBA. After adjusting to free-field equivalent level, average listening levels were gym: 79.7 ± 1.4 dBA; campus square: 76.9 ± 2.1 dBA; library: 70.4 ± 1.4 dBA. There were no statistically significant differences between male and female listeners, and there were no reliable differences as a

Effects of Phonological Input as a Pre-Listening Activity on Vocabulary Learning and L2 Listening Comprehension Test Performance

Science.gov (United States)

Mihara, Kei

2015-01-01

The purpose of the present study is twofold. The first goal is to examine the effects of phonological input on students' vocabulary learning. The second is to discuss how different pre­-listening activities affect students' second language listening comprehension. The participants were first-­year students at a Japanese university. There were two…

The Posterior Fossa and Foreign Accent Syndrome : Report of Two New Cases and Review of the Literature

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Keulen, Stefanie; Mariën, Peter; van Dun, Kim; Bastiaanse, Roelien; Manto, Mario; Verhoeven, Jo

Foreign accent syndrome is a rare motor speech disorder that causes patients to speak their language with a non-native accent. In the neurogenic condition, the disorder develops after lesions in the language dominant hemisphere, often affecting Broca's area, the insula, the supplementary motor area

Reading and listening in people with aphasia: effects of syntactic complexity.

Science.gov (United States)

DeDe, Gayle

2013-11-01

The purpose of this study was to compare online effects of syntactic complexity in written and spoken sentence comprehension in people with aphasia (PWA) and adults with no brain damage (NBD). The participants in Experiment 1 were NBD older and younger adults (n = 20 per group). The participants in Experiment 2 were 10 PWA. In both experiments, the participants read and listened to sentences in self-paced reading and listening tasks. The experimental materials consisted of object cleft sentences (e.g., It was the girl who the boy hugged.) and subject cleft sentences (e.g., It was the boy who hugged the girl.). The predicted effects of syntactic complexity were observed in both Experiments 1 and 2: Reading and listening times were longer for the verb in sentences with object compared to subject relative clauses. The NBD controls showed exaggerated effects of syntactic complexity in reading compared to listening. The PWA did not show different modality effects from the NBD participants. Although effects of syntactic complexity were somewhat exaggerated in reading compared with listening, both the PWA and the NBD controls showed similar effects in both modalities.

Listening comprehension across the adult lifespan.

Science.gov (United States)

Sommers, Mitchell S; Hale, Sandra; Myerson, Joel; Rose, Nathan; Tye-Murray, Nancy; Spehar, Brent

2011-01-01

Although age-related declines in perceiving spoken language are well established, the primary focus of research has been on perception of phonemes, words, and sentences. In contrast, relatively few investigations have been directed at establishing the effects of age on the comprehension of extended spoken passages. Moreover, most previous work has used extreme-group designs in which the performance of a group of young adults is contrasted with that of a group of older adults and little if any information is available regarding changes in listening comprehension across the adult lifespan. Accordingly, the goals of the current investigation were to determine whether there are age differences in listening comprehension across the adult lifespan and, if so, whether similar trajectories are observed for age-related changes in auditory sensitivity and listening comprehension. This study used a cross-sectional lifespan design in which approximately 60 individuals in each of 7 decades, from age 20 to 89 yr (a total of 433 participants), were tested on three different measures of listening comprehension. In addition, we obtained measures of auditory sensitivity from all participants. Changes in auditory sensitivity across the adult lifespan exhibited the progressive high-frequency loss typical of age-related hearing impairment. Performance on the listening comprehension measures, however, demonstrated a very different pattern, with scores on all measures remaining relatively stable until age 65 to 70 yr, after which significant declines were observed. Follow-up analyses indicated that this same general pattern was observed across three different types of passages (lectures, interviews, and narratives) and three different question types (information, integration, and inference). Multiple regression analyses indicated that low-frequency pure-tone average was the single largest contributor to age-related variance in listening comprehension for individuals older than 65 yr, but

Listeners' and Performers' Shared Understanding of Jazz Improvisations.

Science.gov (United States)

Schober, Michael F; Spiro, Neta

2016-01-01

This study explores the extent to which a large set of musically experienced listeners share understanding with a performing saxophone-piano duo, and with each other, of what happened in three improvisations on a jazz standard. In an online survey, 239 participants listened to audio recordings of three improvisations and rated their agreement with 24 specific statements that the performers and a jazz-expert commenting listener had made about them. Listeners endorsed statements that the performers had agreed upon significantly more than they endorsed statements that the performers had disagreed upon, even though the statements gave no indication of performers' levels of agreement. The findings show some support for a more-experienced-listeners-understand-more-like-performers hypothesis: Listeners with more jazz experience and with experience playing the performers' instruments endorsed the performers' statements more than did listeners with less jazz experience and experience on different instruments. The findings also strongly support a listeners-as-outsiders hypothesis: Listeners' ratings of the 24 statements were far more likely to cluster with the commenting listener's ratings than with either performer's. But the pattern was not universal; particular listeners even with similar musical backgrounds could interpret the same improvisations radically differently. The evidence demonstrates that it is possible for performers' interpretations to be shared with very few listeners, and that listeners' interpretations about what happened in a musical performance can be far more different from performers' interpretations than performers or other listeners might assume.

Pointed and plateau-shaped pitch accents in North Frisian

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Niebuhr, Oliver; Hoekstra, Jarich

2015-01-01

for language documentation and conservation purposes. We selected a small part of this corpus – interviews of 10 elderly speakers – and conducted multiparametric F0 and duration measurements, focusing on nuclear rising-falling pitch accent patterns. We found strong evidence for a phonological pitch...

Music Listening and Stress in Daily Life-a Matter of Timing.

Science.gov (United States)

Linnemann, Alexandra; Wenzel, Mario; Grammes, Jennifer; Kubiak, Thomas; Nater, Urs M

2018-04-01

Despite increasing evidence suggesting that music listening in daily life has stress-reducing effects, studies mostly rely on subjective, retrospective data on music listening. Thus, the temporal dynamics underlying the stress-reducing effect of music listening remain unclear. Therefore, we aimed to examine the temporal dynamics of the associations between stress and music listening by assessing subjective and objective data on music in daily life. An exploratory Ambulatory Assessment study examining a total of 60 participants (37 women), aged 18 to 34 years (M = 22.4 years, SD = 3.5) was conducted. For 1 week, participants answered questions on music listening and stress six times per day via an electronic diary device, which additionally objectively sampled the exact time point of music listening and its duration. Self-reports on mere music listening were associated with lower stress reports, whereas objectively assessed data was not. However, concerning duration of music listening, both subjective and objective data on music listening showed associations between a minimum of 20 min of music listening and lower stress reports. Concerning the latency, objective data on music listening revealed that the association between stress reports and music listening occurs in a time-delayed manner. Although the study design does not allow for causal inferences, substantial associations among subjectively and objectively assessed data on music listening were found to differentially affect the experience of stress after music listening. In particular, when focusing on the temporal dynamics, objectively assessed data allowed for a more fine-grained analysis. In consequence, subjectively and objectively reported data on music listening should be assessed jointly when investigating effects of music listening on health. Experimental research with rigorous methodological control is required in order to corroborate our findings in a laboratory setting.

"I like the Americans...but I Certainly Don't Aim for an American Accent": Language Attitudes, Vitality and Foreign Language Learning in Denmark

Science.gov (United States)

Ladegaard, Hans J.; Sachdev, Itesh

2006-01-01

The power and status of America in the world today are undeniable. This paper presents some empirical data about the attitudes and perceptions Danish learners of EFL have about British and American English. Ninety-six EFL learners participated in a verbal-guise experiment that involved rating different accents of English: American, Australian,…

The effect of L1 prosodic backgrounds of Cantonese and Japanese speakers on the perception of Mandarin tones after training

Science.gov (United States)

So, Connie K.

2005-04-01

The present study investigated to what extent ones' L1 prosodic backgrounds affect their learning of a new tonal system. The question as to whether native speakers of a tone language perform differently from those of a pitch accent language will be addressed. Twenty native speakers of Hong Kong Cantonese (a tone language) and Japanese (a pitch accent language) were assigned to two groups. All of them had had no prior knowledge of Mandarin, and had never received any form of musical training before they participated in the study. Their performance of the identification of Mandarin tones before and after a short-term training was compared. Analysis of listeners' tonal confusions in the pretest, posttest, and generalization tests revealed that both Cantonese and Japanese listeners had more confusion for two contrastive tone pairs: Tone 1-Tone 4, and Tone 2-Tone 3. Moreover, Cantonese speakers consistently had greater difficulty than Japanese speakers in distinguishing the tones in each pair. These imply that listeners L1 prosodic backgrounds are at work during the process of learning a new tonal system. The findings will be further discussed in terms of the Perceptual Assimilation Model (Best, 1995). [Work supported by SSHRC.

Being the corresponding accents of red in one interior and one exterior as

OpenAIRE

Sandeva, Vaska; Despot, Katerina; Namicev, Petar; Ignatov, Aleksandar

2013-01-01

What is the emphasis in the interior and what is exterior accent? Thair next goal is to attract attention and to clarify the answer to his location i.e. to highlight the special effect of the composition, which we have set. The color is the emphasis that has been selected for analysis. From the color palette, accent color is red, a primary color and while contrast to green or color that represented 60% of the exterior and is dominant. Ability of the human eye to focus and take depending on th...

Listeners' and performers' shared understanding of jazz improvisations

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Michael F Schober

2016-11-01

Full Text Available This study explores the extent to which a large set of musically experienced listeners share understanding with a performing saxophone-piano duo, and with each other, of what happened in three improvisations on a jazz standard. In an online survey, 239 participants listened to audio recordings of three improvisations and rated their agreement with 24 specific statements that the performers and a jazz-expert commenting listener had made about them. Listeners endorsed statements that the performers had agreed upon significantly more than they endorsed statements that the performers had disagreed upon, even though the statements gave no indication of performers' levels of agreement. The findings show some support for a more-experienced-listeners-understand-more-like-performers hypothesis: Listeners with more jazz experience and with experience playing the performers' instruments endorsed the performers' statements more than did listeners with less jazz experience and experience on different instruments. The findings also strongly support a listeners-as-outsiders hypothesis: Listeners' ratings of the 24 statements were far more likely to cluster with the commenting listener's ratings than with either performer's. But the pattern was not universal; particular listeners even with similar musical backgrounds could interpret the same improvisations radically differently. The evidence demonstrates that it is possible for performers' interpretations to be shared with very few listeners, and that listeners’ interpretations about what happened in a musical performance can be far more different from performers’ interpretations than performers or other listeners might assume.

Physical load handling and listening comprehension effects on balance control.

Science.gov (United States)

Qu, Xingda

2010-12-01

The purpose of this study was to determine the physical load handling and listening comprehension effects on balance control. A total of 16 young and 16 elderly participants were recruited in this study. The physical load handling task required holding a 5-kg load in each hand with arms at sides. The listening comprehension task involved attentive listening to a short conversation. Three short questions were asked regarding the conversation right after the testing trial to test the participants' attentiveness during the experiment. Balance control was assessed by centre of pressure-based measures, which were calculated from the force platform data when the participants were quietly standing upright on a force platform. Results from this study showed that both physical load handling and listening comprehension adversely affected balance control. Physical load handling had a more deleterious effect on balance control under the listening comprehension condition vs. no-listening comprehension condition. Based on the findings from this study, interventions for the improvement of balance could be focused on avoiding exposures to physically demanding tasks and cognitively demanding tasks simultaneously. STATEMENT OF RELEVANCE: Findings from this study can aid in better understanding how humans maintain balance, especially when physical and cognitive loads are applied. Such information is useful for developing interventions to prevent fall incidents and injuries in occupational settings and daily activities.

Developing L2 Listening Fluency through Extended Listening-Focused Activities in an Extensive Listening Programme

Science.gov (United States)

Chang, Anna C-S.; Millett, Sonia

2016-01-01

This study investigates the effects on developing L2 listening fluency through doing extended listening-focused activities after reading and listening to audio graded readers. Seventy-six EFL university students read and listened to a total of 15 graded readers in a 15-week extensive listening programme. They were divided into three groups (Group…

A listening test system for automotive audio

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Christensen, Flemming; Martin, Geoff; Minnaar, Pauli

2005-01-01

A selection procedure was devised in order to select listeners for experiments in which their main task will be to judge multi-channel reproduced sound. 91 participants filled in a web-based questionnaire. 78 of them took part in an assessment of their hearing thresholds, their spatial hearing......, and their verbal production abilities. The listeners displayed large individual differences in their performance. 40 subjects were selected based on the test results. The self-assessed listening habits and experience in the web questionnaire could not predict the results of the selection procedure. Further......, the hearing thresholds did not correlate with the spatial-hearing test. This leads to the conclusion that task-specific performance tests might be the preferable means of selecting a listening panel....

Teaching Listening.

Science.gov (United States)

Mendelsohn, David J.

1998-01-01

Review of research on trends in teaching second-language listening focuses primarily on strategy instruction and a strategy-based approach but also refers to developments in terms of listening and "high-tech contexts," interactive listening, and academic listening. Classroom listening textbooks are discussed, with attention to the mismatch between…

Content-specific coordination of listeners' to speakers' EEG during communication.

Science.gov (United States)

Kuhlen, Anna K; Allefeld, Carsten; Haynes, John-Dylan

2012-01-01

Cognitive neuroscience has recently begun to extend its focus from the isolated individual mind to two or more individuals coordinating with each other. In this study we uncover a coordination of neural activity between the ongoing electroencephalogram (EEG) of two people-a person speaking and a person listening. The EEG of one set of twelve participants ("speakers") was recorded while they were narrating short stories. The EEG of another set of twelve participants ("listeners") was recorded while watching audiovisual recordings of these stories. Specifically, listeners watched the superimposed videos of two speakers simultaneously and were instructed to attend either to one or the other speaker. This allowed us to isolate neural coordination due to processing the communicated content from the effects of sensory input. We find several neural signatures of communication: First, the EEG is more similar among listeners attending to the same speaker than among listeners attending to different speakers, indicating that listeners' EEG reflects content-specific information. Secondly, listeners' EEG activity correlates with the attended speakers' EEG, peaking at a time delay of about 12.5 s. This correlation takes place not only between homologous, but also between non-homologous brain areas in speakers and listeners. A semantic analysis of the stories suggests that listeners coordinate with speakers at the level of complex semantic representations, so-called "situation models". With this study we link a coordination of neural activity between individuals directly to verbally communicated information.

Efficient Personalized Mispronunciation Detection of Taiwanese-Accented English Speech Based on Unsupervised Model Adaptation and Dynamic Sentence Selection

Science.gov (United States)

Wu, Chung-Hsien; Su, Hung-Yu; Liu, Chao-Hong

2013-01-01

This study presents an efficient approach to personalized mispronunciation detection of Taiwanese-accented English. The main goal of this study was to detect frequently occurring mispronunciation patterns of Taiwanese-accented English instead of scoring English pronunciations directly. The proposed approach quickly identifies personalized…

ACCENT-BIAFLUX workshop 2005, trace gas and aerosol flux measurement and techniques. Abstract book

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Werner, A.; Soerensen, L.L. (eds.)

2005-04-01

The woorkshop trace gas and aerosol flux measurement techniques in the second meeting within the Biosphere Atmosphere Exchange of Pollutions (BIAFLUX) group in the EU-network project Atmospheric Composition Change (ACCENT). The goal of the workshop is to obtain an overview of techniques for measurements of gas and aerosol fluxes and to gather the knowledge of uncertainties in flux measurements and calculations. The workshop is funded by ACCENT. The abstract book presents abstracts of 21 oral presentations and 26 poster presentations. (LN)

A hypothesis on improving foreign accents by optimizing variability in vocal learning brain circuits

OpenAIRE

Simmonds, Anna J.

2015-01-01

Rapid vocal motor learning is observed when acquiring a language in early childhood, or learning to speak another language later in life. Accurate pronunciation is one of the hardest things for late learners to master and they are almost always left with a non-native accent. Here, I propose a novel hypothesis that this accent could be improved by optimizing variability in vocal learning brain circuits during learning. Much of the neurobiology of human vocal motor learning has been inferred fr...

Bivariate and Multivariate Associations between Trait Listening Goals and Trait Communicator Preferences

Science.gov (United States)

Keaton, Shaughan A.; Keteyian, Robert V.; Bodie, Graham D.

2014-01-01

This article provides validity evidence for a measure of listening goals by showing theoretically consistent relationships with an existing communication preference questionnaire. Participants (N = 257) were administered trait measures for listening goals and communicator preferences. The four listening goals--relational, task-oriented,…

Personality Traits and Performance in Listening for Minimal Pairs

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Saemeh Askani

2017-12-01

Full Text Available The aim of this study was to compare the performances of EFL learners belonging to various personality groups in listening tests. A group of 30 high school EFL learners were selected for this study. All of them were at low-intermediate level of general English proficiency. Based on Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI personality questionnaire (2017, these participants were classified into four pairs of contrasting personality groups. The analysis of the participants‟ personality types was conducted online and took about twenty minutes. Then, they took a test of listening for minimal pairs. Scores of contrasting personality groups were compared with each other by running four paired t-tests. Results obtained by these t-tests showed that intuitive participants outperformed sensing ones, and perceiving participants outperformed judging ones in the listening test. No significant difference was found between the performances of contrasting personality groups in the two pairs of extrovert/introvert and thinking/feeling. Flexibility, adaptability, and being open to a larger set of options are suggested to be possible reasons behind the success of these groups. However, the influence of large set of interacting factors that might have a significant impact on the performance of people in listening test cannot be denied. Depending on the type of listening test, some of these factors might play a more significant role compared to other competing factors.

Metacognitive Listening Strategies Used by Saudi EFL Medical Students

Science.gov (United States)

Alhaison, Eid

2017-01-01

The present study investigated the metacognitive listening strategies among Saudi EFL medical students. The participants were 104 males and females, randomly selected to fill in the Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire (MALQ), developed and validated Vandergrift Goh, Mareschal, and Tafaghodtari (2006). The results revealed that…

THE USE OF COMPUTER-BASED MEANS TO DEVELOP LISTENING AND SPEAKING SKILLS TO BUSINESS STUDENTS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sim Monica Ariana

2012-07-01

Full Text Available The aim of this paper is to analyze how business students can achieve communication skills, namely listening and speaking, through computer-based interactive simulations. In today’s foreign language teaching, methods using computer applications and multimedia environments are more and more gaining territory to the detriment of traditional methods. These applications are used successfully in reading, writing, listening and speaking practices both by foreign language teachers and by students throughout the world. Moreover, these means are helpful in practising the four skills of a language: reading, writing, listening and speaking. With the advance of Internet, the computer has been transformed from a tool for information processing and display into a tool for information processing and communication. The instant worldwide connections enabled by the Internet have changed the way teachers and learners work in their teaching and learning of second/foreign language. The Internet provides the opportunity for business students to interact with native speakers and, in the same time, to listen to business people around the world, in this way getting acquainted with different accents and speeches. When students listen to a native speaker, they are automatically emerged in the latter’s world. There are many idioms and phrases used by native speakers of the language but they hardly are included in the traditional lesson materials. Through specific Internet sites, the students become familiar with these idioms and phrases and most important is that they learn how to use them in a context. From a cultural point of view, the students become familiar with the turn taking habits, addressing different people, greetings, invitations and many cultural related issues. What is important to keep in mind is that the teacher must create an appropriate learning environment to suit the situation and conform to the needs of the class. A learning environment

Listening Journals for Extensive and Intensive Listening Practice

Science.gov (United States)

Schmidt, Anthony

2016-01-01

In this article, Anthony Schmidt presents results from his research on listening instruction in a second language. Schmidt reveals that throughout the history of English language teaching (ELT), most students have never been taught how to listen. It was not just listening, but the need to do this listening in conjunction with an approach that…

Listening to music reduces eye movements.

Science.gov (United States)

Schäfer, Thomas; Fachner, Jörg

2015-02-01

Listening to music can change the way that people visually experience the environment, probably as a result of an inwardly directed shift of attention. We investigated whether this attentional shift can be demonstrated by reduced eye movement activity, and if so, whether that reduction depends on absorption. Participants listened to their preferred music, to unknown neutral music, or to no music while viewing a visual stimulus (a picture or a film clip). Preference and absorption were significantly higher for the preferred music than for the unknown music. Participants exhibited longer fixations, fewer saccades, and more blinks when they listened to music than when they sat in silence. However, no differences emerged between the preferred music condition and the neutral music condition. Thus, music significantly reduces eye movement activity, but an attentional shift from the outer to the inner world (i.e., to the emotions and memories evoked by the music) emerged as only one potential explanation. Other explanations, such as a shift of attention from visual to auditory input, are discussed.

Improved motor sequence retention by motionless listening.

Science.gov (United States)

Lahav, Amir; Katz, Tal; Chess, Roxanne; Saltzman, Elliot

2013-05-01

This study examined the effect of listening to a newly learned musical piece on subsequent motor retention of the piece. Thirty-six non-musicians were trained to play an unfamiliar melody on a piano keyboard. Next, they were randomly assigned to participate in three follow-up listening sessions over 1 week. Subjects who, during their listening sessions, listened to the same initial piece showed significant improvements in motor memory and retention of the piece despite the absence of physical practice. These improvements included increased pitch accuracy, time accuracy, and dynamic intensity of key pressing. Similar improvements, though to a lesser degree, were observed in subjects who, during their listening sessions, were distracted by another task. Control subjects, who after learning the piece had listened to nonmusical sounds, showed impaired motoric retention of the piece at 1 week from the initial acquisition day. These results imply that motor sequences can be established in motor memory without direct access to motor-related information. In addition, the study revealed that the listening-induced improvements did not generalize to the learning of a new musical piece composed of the same notes as the initial piece learned, limiting the effects to musical motor sequences that are already part of the individual's motor repertoire.

Task-Based Listening Assessment and the Influence of Construct-Irrelevant Variance

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Arshya Keyvanfar

2008-02-01

Full Text Available Task-based listening tests such as IELTS require testees to listen to some information on a CD and simultaneously answer the related items. To answer such items, testees are expected to comprehend, analyze, compare and infer pieces of information while listening to the incoming audio material. The present research attempted to investigate whether the two major characteristics of question type and consecutive/simultaneous performance have any impact on the listening performance of Iranian EFL learners. Findings indicated that participants had a significantly better performance when they tackled the tasks consecutively, and performed even better in listening MC items rather than in listening task-based items. The researchers, thus, concluded that task-based listening tests such as IELTS listening module may be under the influence of construct-irrelevant variance.

Can You Understand Me? Speaking Robots and Accented Speech

Science.gov (United States)

Moussalli, Souheila; Cardoso, Walcir

2017-01-01

The results of our previous research on the pedagogical use of Speaking Robots (SRs) revealed positive effects on motivating students to practice their oral skills in a stress-free environment. However, our findings indicated that the SR was sometimes unable to understand students' foreign accented speech. In this paper, we report the results of a…

Not Just Wanna Have Fun: Teaching Listening Skills with Songs

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Amalia Qistina Abdullah

2013-07-01

Full Text Available Teaching listening skills is very challenging to ESL teachers. It involves active participation from both teachers and students to ensure the objectives of teaching listening skills can be achieved. Hence, this presentation provides interesting and exciting strategies to teach listening skills using selected songs.  It is hoped that this would motivate ESL teachers to apply and adapt these strategies in their English language classrooms.

Listening Effectively.

Science.gov (United States)

Freshour, Frank W.

1987-01-01

Research indicates that people spend roughly 45 to 65 percent of their waking moments listening to other persons. To help administrators improve their listening effectiveness, a format to develop a profile of personal listening styles is provided. The strengths and weaknesses of six different listening styles are explored along with ways to…

The Accent-protocol: a framework for benchmarking and model evaluation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Builtjes, P.J.H.; Grewe, V.; Moussiopoulos, N.; Borrego, C.; Isaksen, I.S.A.; Volz-Thomas, A.

2011-01-01

We summarise results from a workshop on “Model Benchmarking and Quality Assurance” of the EU-Network of Excellence ACCENT, including results from other activities (e.g. COST Action 732) and publications. A formalised evaluation protocol is presented, i.e. a generic formalism describing the procedure

Indian accent text-to-speech system for web browsing

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

This paper describes a 'web reader' which 'reads out' the textual contents of a selected web page in Hindi or in English with Indian accent. The content of the page is downloaded and parsed into suitable textual form. It is then passed on to an indigenously developed text-to-speech system for Hindi/Indian English, ...

Perceiving active listening activates the reward system and improves the impression of relevant experiences.

Science.gov (United States)

Kawamichi, Hiroaki; Yoshihara, Kazufumi; Sasaki, Akihiro T; Sugawara, Sho K; Tanabe, Hiroki C; Shinohara, Ryoji; Sugisawa, Yuka; Tokutake, Kentaro; Mochizuki, Yukiko; Anme, Tokie; Sadato, Norihiro

2015-01-01

Although active listening is an influential behavior, which can affect the social responses of others, the neural correlates underlying its perception have remained unclear. Sensing active listening in social interactions is accompanied by an improvement in the recollected impressions of relevant experiences and is thought to arouse positive feelings. We therefore hypothesized that the recognition of active listening activates the reward system, and that the emotional appraisal of experiences that had been subject to active listening would be improved. To test these hypotheses, we conducted functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) on participants viewing assessments of their own personal experiences made by evaluators with or without active listening attitude. Subjects rated evaluators who showed active listening more positively. Furthermore, they rated episodes more positively when they were evaluated by individuals showing active listening. Neural activation in the ventral striatum was enhanced by perceiving active listening, suggesting that this was processed as rewarding. It also activated the right anterior insula, representing positive emotional reappraisal processes. Furthermore, the mentalizing network was activated when participants were being evaluated, irrespective of active listening behavior. Therefore, perceiving active listening appeared to result in positive emotional appraisal and to invoke mental state attribution to the active listener.

Measuring listening effort: driving simulator versus simple dual-task paradigm.

Science.gov (United States)

Wu, Yu-Hsiang; Aksan, Nazan; Rizzo, Matthew; Stangl, Elizabeth; Zhang, Xuyang; Bentler, Ruth

2014-01-01

The dual-task paradigm has been widely used to measure listening effort. The primary objectives of the study were to (1) investigate the effect of hearing aid amplification and a hearing aid directional technology on listening effort measured by a complicated, more real world dual-task paradigm and (2) compare the results obtained with this paradigm to a simpler laboratory-style dual-task paradigm. The listening effort of adults with hearing impairment was measured using two dual-task paradigms, wherein participants performed a speech recognition task simultaneously with either a driving task in a simulator or a visual reaction-time task in a sound-treated booth. The speech materials and road noises for the speech recognition task were recorded in a van traveling on the highway in three hearing aid conditions: unaided, aided with omnidirectional processing (OMNI), and aided with directional processing (DIR). The change in the driving task or the visual reaction-time task performance across the conditions quantified the change in listening effort. Compared to the driving-only condition, driving performance declined significantly with the addition of the speech recognition task. Although the speech recognition score was higher in the OMNI and DIR conditions than in the unaided condition, driving performance was similar across these three conditions, suggesting that listening effort was not affected by amplification and directional processing. Results from the simple dual-task paradigm showed a similar trend: hearing aid technologies improved speech recognition performance, but did not affect performance in the visual reaction-time task (i.e., reduce listening effort). The correlation between listening effort measured using the driving paradigm and the visual reaction-time task paradigm was significant. The finding showing that our older (56 to 85 years old) participants' better speech recognition performance did not result in reduced listening effort was not

The stress-reducing effect of music listening varies depending on the social context.

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Linnemann, Alexandra; Strahler, Jana; Nater, Urs M

2016-10-01

Given that music listening often occurs in a social context, and given that social support can be associated with a stress-reducing effect, it was tested whether the mere presence of others while listening to music enhances the stress-reducing effect of listening to music. A total of 53 participants responded to questions on stress, presence of others, and music listening five times per day (30min after awakening, 1100h, 1400h, 1800h, 2100h) for seven consecutive days. After each assessment, participants were asked to collect a saliva sample for the later analysis of salivary cortisol (as a marker for the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis) and salivary alpha-amylase (as a marker for the autonomic nervous system). Hierarchical linear modeling revealed that music listening per se was not associated with a stress-reducing effect. However, listening to music in the presence of others led to decreased subjective stress levels, attenuated secretion of salivary cortisol, and higher activity of salivary alpha-amylase. When listening to music alone, music that was listened to for the reason of relaxation predicted lower subjective stress. The stress-reducing effect of music listening in daily life varies depending on the presence of others. Music listening in the presence of others enhanced the stress-reducing effect of music listening independently of reasons for music listening. Solitary music listening was stress-reducing when relaxation was stated as the reason for music listening. Thus, in daily life, music listening can be used for stress reduction purposes, with the greatest success when it occurs in the presence of others or when it is deliberately listened to for the reason of relaxation. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A study of Chinese university EFL learners’ foreign language listening anxiety, listening strategy use and academic listening performance

OpenAIRE

Liu, Meihua; Thondhlana, Juliet

2015-01-01

The present study examined foreign language (FL) listening anxiety and listening strategy use in relation to the FL listening comprehension performance of 1702 undergraduate EFL learners from 5 universities in China. The findings were: (1) more than half of the students generally did not feel anxious when listening to English, were low in English listening proficiency, and were not confident in or satisfied with their English listening proficiency, and usually moderately used different types ...

Listening Strategies of L2 Learners with Varied Test Tasks

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Chang, Anna Ching-Shyang

2008-01-01

This article investigates the strategies that EFL students used and how they adjusted these strategies in response to various listening test tasks. The test tasks involved four forms of listening support: previewing questions, repeated input, background information preparation, and vocabulary instruction. Twenty-two participants were enlisted and…

The efficiency, energy intensity and visual impact of the accent lighting in the retail grocery stores

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Ľudmila Nagyová

2014-11-01

Full Text Available Over the last few years, topics of displaying, presentation, lighting, energy saving and issues related to the environment while selling the fresh food (fruits, vegetable, bakery products, meat are becoming an important matter among traders. However, just bigger companies with transnational capital have devoted their attention to this issue yet. Generally, the energy costs make up 70% of operating costs in retail stores where the cooling system and lighting are the most energy consuming. Accent lighting in modern retails is largely involved in the overall design and atmosphere in shops and plays a crucial role in presenting the goods as well. Using of accent lighting can draw the customer's attention to a specific part of the sales area and achieve the overall harmonization in the store. With the rational using of combination of energy saving and effective accent lighting retailers can achieve not only attractive presentation of displayed products but also appreciable savings in the operation of their stores. It is the only factor that can be exactly measured and controlled. Using a Colour and Lux Meters we found out the intensity and color temperature of accent lighting used in domestic and foreign retail chains for the different kinds of fresh food products. Based on the obtained values we have compiled graphs, which are showing visual comfort. We also identified different types of accent lighting, which we assigned to their impact on emotional involvement of consumers. The starting points were the tests we conducted in simulated laboratory conditions. While searching of a compromise between effective and energy efficient accent lighting we take into consideration consumers' emotional response as well as the annual electricity consumption of different types of light sources. At the end we recommend options for energy-efficient, effective and spectacular lighting while using the optimal number of light sources and their logical organization

The Relationship between EFL Learners' Self-Regulation and Their Listening Comprehension

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Mohammad Ali Fatemi

2014-08-01

Full Text Available Self-regulated EFL students can comprehend better what they listen. The present study sought to investigate the relationship between EFL learners' listening comprehension and their self-regulation. To achieve the goals of this study, 103 intermediate EFL learners were selected in Torbat-e- Heydarieh, Iran. Two instruments were employed and the participants were to complete; first, Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ to assess their Self-Regulation; and second, Standard Listening Test (SLT to measure their listening comprehension. Results of Pearson Correlation Coefficient indicated a statistically significant correlation. This finding provides pedagogical implications for EFL teachers to use self-regulatory approach when teaching listening comprehension.

[Effectively communicate active listening : Comparison of two concepts].

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Martin, O; Rockenbauch, K; Kleinert, E; Stöbel-Richter, Y

2017-09-01

Communication between physicians and patients has a great influence on patient adherence, patient satisfaction and the success of treatment. In this context, patient centered care and emotional support have a high positive impact; however, it is unclear how physicians can be motivated to communicate with patients in an appreciative and empathetic way. The implementation of such behavior requires a multitude of communicative skills. One of them is active listening, which is very important in two respects. On the one hand active listening provides the basis for several conversational contexts as a special communication technique and on the other hand active listening is presented in current textbooks in different ways: as an attitude or as a technique. In light of this, the question arises how active listening should be taught in order to be not only applicable in concrete conversations but also to lead to the highest possible level of patient satisfaction. The aim of this pilot study was to examine some variations in simulated doctor-patient conversations, which are the result of the different approaches to active listening. For this purpose three groups of first semester medical students were recruited, two of which were schooled in active listening in different ways (two groups of six students), i.e. attitude versus technique oriented. The third group (seven students) acted as the control group. In a pre-post design interviews with standardized simulation patients were conducted and subsequently evaluated. The analysis of these interviews was considered from the perspectives of participants and observers as well as the quantitative aspects. This study revealed some interesting tendencies despite its status as a pilot study: in general, the two interventional groups performed significantly better than the control group in which no relevant changes occurred. In a direct comparison, the group in which active listening was taught from an attitude approach achieved

Accent, Identity, and a Fear of Loss? ESL Students' Perspectives

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McCrocklin, Shannon; Link, Stephanie

2016-01-01

Because many theorists propose a connection between accent and identity, some theorists have justifiably been concerned about the ethical ramifications of L2 pronunciation teaching. However, English-as-a-second-language (ESL) students often state a desire to sound like native speakers. With little research into ESL students' perceptions of links…

Listening Heads

NARCIS (Netherlands)

de Kok, I.A.

2013-01-01

The thesis explores individual differences in listening behavior and how these differences can be used in the development and evaluation of listener response prediction models for embodied conversational agents. The thesis starts with introducing methods to collect multiple perspectives on listening

Active Listening Improve Your Ability to Listen and Lead

CERN Document Server

(CCL), Center for Creative Leadership

2011-01-01

Active listening is a person's willingness and ability to hear and understand. At its core, active listening is a state of mind that involves paying full and careful attention to the other person, avoiding premature judgment, reflecting understanding, clarifying information, summarizing, and sharing. By learning and committing to the skills and behaviors of active listening, leaders can become more effective listeners and, over time, improve their ability to lead.

Teaching Listening

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Nemtchinova, Ekaterina

2013-01-01

Ekaterina Nemtchinova's book "Teaching Listening" explores different approaches to teaching listening in second language classrooms. Presenting up-to-date research and theoretical issues associated with second language listening, Nemtchinova explains how these new findings inform everyday teaching and offers practical suggestions…

Headphone listening habits and hearing thresholds in swedish adolescents

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Stephen E Widen

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Introduction: The aim of this study was to investigate self-reported hearing and portable music listening habits, measured hearing function and music exposure levels in Swedish adolescents. The study was divided into two parts. Materials and Methods: The first part included 280 adolescents, who were 17 years of age and focused on self-reported data on subjective hearing problems and listening habits regarding portable music players. From this group, 50 adolescents volunteered to participate in Part II of the study, which focused on audiological measurements and measured listening volume. Results: The results indicated that longer lifetime exposure in years and increased listening frequency were associated with poorer hearing thresholds and more self-reported hearing problems. A tendency was found for listening to louder volumes and poorer hearing thresholds. Women reported more subjective hearing problems compared with men but exhibited better hearing thresholds. In contrast, men reported more use of personal music devices, and they listen at higher volumes. Discussion: Additionally, the study shows that adolescents listening for ≥3 h at every occasion more likely had tinnitus. Those listening at ≥85 dB LAeq, FF and listening every day exhibited poorer mean hearing thresholds, reported more subjective hearing problems and listened more frequently in school and while sleeping. Conclusion: Although the vast majority listened at moderate sound levels and for shorter periods of time, the study also indicates that there is a subgroup (10% that listens between 90 and 100 dB for longer periods of time, even during sleep. This group might be at risk for developing future noise-induced hearing impairments.

The fading affect bias: Effects of social disclosure to an interactive versus non-responsive listener.

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Muir, Kate; Brown, Charity; Madill, Anna

2015-01-01

The intensity of negative emotions associated with event memories fades to a greater extent over time than positive emotions (fading affect bias or FAB). In this study, we examine how the presence and behaviour of a listener during social disclosure influences the FAB and the linguistic characteristics of event narratives. Participants recalled pleasant and unpleasant events and rated each event for its emotional intensity. Recalled events were then allocated to one of three experimental conditions: no disclosure, private verbal disclosure without a listener or social disclosure to another participant whose behaviour was experimentally manipulated. Participants again rated the emotional intensity of the events immediately after these manipulations and after a one-week delay. Verbal disclosure alone was not sufficient to enhance the FAB. However, social disclosure increased positive emotional intensity, regardless of the behaviour of the listener. Whilst talking to an interactive listener led unpleasant event memories to decrease in emotional intensity, talking to a non-responsive listener increased their negative emotional intensity. Further, listener behaviour influenced the extent of emotional expression in written event narratives. This study provides original evidence that listener behaviour during social disclosure is an important factor in the effects of social disclosure in the FAB.

The Accented EFL Teacher: Classroom Implications El acento del profesor de inglés como lengua extranjera: implicaciones pedagógicas

OpenAIRE

Argemiro Arboleda Arboleda; Ángela Yicely Castro Garcés

2012-01-01

This article reports the findings of a research study on how significant having a foreign accent is for non-native English as a foreign language teachers and learners at university level. It points out the perceptions that teachers and students have about the most relevant issues in the teaching and learning processes. Data were collected by means of a questionnaire answered by thirty-two participants: eight Colombian teachers, eight foreign teachers, eight Colombian students, and eight forei...

Benefits of listening to a recording of euphoric joint music making in polydrug abusers

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Thomas Hans Fritz

2015-06-01

Full Text Available Background and AimsListening to music can have powerful physiological and therapeutic effects. Some essential features of the mental mechanism underlying beneficial effects of music are probably strong physiological and emotional associations with music created during the act of music making. Here we tested this hypothesis in a clinical population of polydrug abusers in rehabilitation listening to a previously performed act of physiologically and emotionally intense music making.MethodsPsychological effects of listening to self-made music that was created in a previous musical feedback intervention were assessed. In this procedure, participants produced music with exercise machines which modulate musical sounds (Jymmin.ResultsThe data showed a positive effect of listening to the recording of joint music making on self-efficacy, mood, and a readiness to engage socially. Furthermore, the data showed the powerful influence of context on how the recording evoked psychological benefits. The effects of listening to the self-made music were only observable when participants listened to their own performance first; listening to a control music piece first caused effects to deteriorate. We observed a positive correlation between participants’ mood and their desire to engage in social activities with their former training partners after listening to the self-made music. This shows that the observed effects of listening to the recording of the single musical feedback intervention are influenced by participants recapitulating intense pleasant social interactions during the Jymmin intervention. ConclusionsListening to music that was the outcome of a previous musical feedback (Jymmin intervention has beneficial psychological and probably social effects in patients that had suffered from polydrug addiction, increasing self-efficacy, mood, and a readiness to engage socially. These intervention effects, however, depend on the context in which the music

“Gallia and Gaul, French and Welsh” (MWW, 3.1.89: Transposing Shakespeare’s ‘Favourite’ Foreign Accents into French

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Lacroix Mylène

2017-12-01

Full Text Available The Merry Wives of Windsor has long been compared to a great babel of languages. The play contains a smattering of Spanish, Italian and Dutch and even a whole scene dedicated to the mistranslation of Latin. A large part of the play’s humour also heavily relies on the foreign accents of two characters: the French Doctor Caius and the Welsh parson Sir Hugh Evans. If Christopher Luscombe’s 2008/2010 production of The Merry Wives at Shakespeare’s Globe theatre in London bears testimony to the success of cross-language and accent-based comedy as a source of laughter on today’s English stage, it seems rather implausible, at first sight, that French translations, adaptations and stagings of these accents and linguistic idiosyncrasies should be greeted with the same degree of hilarity. Indeed, how should the Welsh and French accents, both representing real stumbling blocks for French-speaking translators of the play, be transposed into French? What translation strategies can the latter devise? And to what extent can some of those strategies be said to be politically correct? Focusing on Shakespeare’s ‘favorite’ (predominant accents and the significance and impact of such linguistic comedy, I shall examine the question of their problematic translation through the analysis and comparison of a number of translations and stagings of The Merry Wives of Windsor into French.

Increased Engagement With Life: Differences in the Cognitive, Physical, Social, and Spiritual Activities of Older Adult Music Listeners.

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Kaufmann, Christopher N; Montross-Thomas, Lori P; Griser, Sean

2018-03-19

Clinical studies have demonstrated the health benefits of music listening, especially among older adults; however, this connection has not yet been examined in a nationally representative population based sample. The purpose of this study was to measure the connections between health, listening to music, and engagement with life activities among older Americans. We used data on 5,797 participants in both the 2012 Health and Retirement Study and 2013 Consumption and Activities Mail Survey. Participants reported their lifetime prevalence of health conditions, number of hours spent per week listening to music, as well as various cognitive, physical, social, and spiritual activities. We categorized participants as non-listeners (those reporting zero hours of music listening), average listeners (between >0 and 28.5 hr), and high listeners (>28.6 hr) and assessed associations between these music listening categories and life activities and the prevalence of health conditions. Approximately 20% of the older Americans were non-listeners, a majority (75%) reported average amounts, and 5% reported high levels of music listening. Older Americans who were average or high music listeners reported a greater number of hours engaged in several cognitive, physical, social, and spiritual activities each week. Music listeners additionally reported fewer problematic health conditions than non-listeners. Listening to music relates to increased life engagement and better health among older Americans. Given the wide-spread availability of music-based interventions for diverse populations, future studies may investigate the beneficial use of music as a public health initiative for older adults.

Preferred listening levels of mobile phone programs when considering subway interior noise.

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Yu, Jyaehyoung; Lee, Donguk; Han, Woojae

2016-01-01

Today, people listen to music loud using personal listening devices. Although a majority of studies have reported that the high volume played on these listening devices produces a latent risk of hearing problems, there is a lack of studies on "double noise exposures" such as environmental noise plus recreational noise. The present study measures the preferred listening levels of a mobile phone program with subway interior noise for 74 normal-hearing participants in five age groups (ranging from 20s to 60s). The speakers presented the subway interior noise at 73.45 dB, while each subject listened to three application programs [Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB), music, game] for 30 min using a tablet personal computer with an earphone. The participants' earphone volume levels were analyzed using a sound level meter and a 2cc coupler. Overall, the results showed that those in their 20s listened to the three programs significantly louder with DMB set at significantly higher volume levels than for the other programs. Higher volume levels were needed for middle frequency compared to the lower and higher frequencies. We concluded that any potential risk of noise-induced hearing loss for mobile phone users should be communicated when users listen regularly, although the volume level was not high enough that the users felt uncomfortable. When considering individual listening habits on mobile phones, further study to predict total accumulated environmental noise is still needed.

A Survey of Iranian EFL Teachers’ and Learners’ Perceptions Toward Authentic Listening Materials at University Level

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Amir Mahdavi Zhafarghandi

2014-08-01

Full Text Available This study intends to deal with attitudes of teachers and learners toward authentic listening materials at pre- intermediate level. Studies have indicated the positive effect of authentic listening materials on motivation and listening comprehension ability in learners of English as a foreign language (Nuttall, 1996; Peacock, 1997; Miller, 2005; Field, 2008. It focused on EFL teachers and students at pre intermediate proficiency level. Participants included 60 students, from both gender; male and female university students studying at Rodaki Higher Institute Education in the fields of: Accounting, Computer Engineering and Commercial Management and also 30 teachers who taught listening at Rodaki Higher Institute Education. The students were randomly selected and assigned to two groups. Then, Oxford Placement test as a standard test was administered to the participant in order to determine their proficiency level. Then, the participants were divided into two groups of control and experiment. The experiment group received the listening materials taken from UK radio program whereas the other group received simplified listening materials taken from the authentic listening materials. Afterwards, to be sure that they know what authentic materials are, they were exposed to both of related materials, then the questionnaire was distributed among them, the results taken from the questionnaire showed that the participants of this study prefer authentic materials and have positive attitudes toward using them. By the same token, the analysis of teachers’ questionnaire also showed their satisfaction with authentic listening materials. These findings can have implications for language learning/teaching, and curriculum development paving the way for educational policy makers, teachers and learners to introduce authentic listening materials to EFL learners at pre- intermediate proficiency level.

Listeners Remember Music They Like

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Stalinski, Stephanie M.; Schellenberg, E. Glenn

2013-01-01

Emotions have important and powerful effects on cognitive processes. Although it is well established that memory influences liking, we sought to document whether liking influences memory. A series of 6 experiments examined whether liking is related to recognition memory for novel music excerpts. In the general method, participants listened to a…

The Effect of Vocal Training Methods on Improving Turkish Accent Defects

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Aycan, Kivanc; Evren, Gul Fahriye

2016-01-01

Problem Statement: Despite analyses of how vocal training methods can correct or improve Turkish-language accent defects, for most voice educators, the most important methods continue to be breathe management control and correct vocalization exercises. We therefore sought to demonstrate the relationship of song lyrics to breathe control, accent…

How hearing aids, background noise, and visual cues influence objective listening effort.

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Picou, Erin M; Ricketts, Todd A; Hornsby, Benjamin W Y

2013-09-01

The purpose of this article was to evaluate factors that influence the listening effort experienced when processing speech for people with hearing loss. Specifically, the change in listening effort resulting from introducing hearing aids, visual cues, and background noise was evaluated. An additional exploratory aim was to investigate the possible relationships between the magnitude of listening effort change and individual listeners' working memory capacity, verbal processing speed, or lipreading skill. Twenty-seven participants with bilateral sensorineural hearing loss were fitted with linear behind-the-ear hearing aids and tested using a dual-task paradigm designed to evaluate listening effort. The primary task was monosyllable word recognition and the secondary task was a visual reaction time task. The test conditions varied by hearing aids (unaided, aided), visual cues (auditory-only, auditory-visual), and background noise (present, absent). For all participants, the signal to noise ratio was set individually so that speech recognition performance in noise was approximately 60% in both the auditory-only and auditory-visual conditions. In addition to measures of listening effort, working memory capacity, verbal processing speed, and lipreading ability were measured using the Automated Operational Span Task, a Lexical Decision Task, and the Revised Shortened Utley Lipreading Test, respectively. In general, the effects measured using the objective measure of listening effort were small (~10 msec). Results indicated that background noise increased listening effort, and hearing aids reduced listening effort, while visual cues did not influence listening effort. With regard to the individual variables, verbal processing speed was negatively correlated with hearing aid benefit for listening effort; faster processors were less likely to derive benefit. Working memory capacity, verbal processing speed, and lipreading ability were related to benefit from visual cues. No

Intercultural Listening: Measuring Listening Concepts with the LCI-R

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Janusik, Laura; Imhof, Margarete

2017-01-01

Listening is an integral part of communication, yet more research is conducted on the speaker as opposed to the listener. Previous research established a general schema of listening as a concept-driven behavior with four factors (Imhof & Janusik, 2006). Further testing by Bodie (2010) confirmed the factor structure and reduced the number of…

The Role of Receptive Vocabulary Knowledge in Advanced EFL Listening Comprehension

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Atas, Ufuk

2018-01-01

This paper presents an empirical study that investigates the role of vocabulary knowledge in listening comprehension with 33 advanced Turkish learners of English as a foreign language. The Vocabulary Levels Test (Schmitt, Schmitt & Clapham, 2001) is used to measure the vocabulary knowledge of the participants and a standardized listening test…

The effects of captioning texts and caption ordering on L2 listening comprehension and vocabulary learning

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Fatemeh Alikhani

2013-07-01

Full Text Available This study investigated the effects of captioned texts on second/foreign (L2 listening comprehension and vocabulary gains using a computer multimedia program. Additionally, it explored the caption ordering effect (i.e. captions displayed during the first or second listening, and the interaction of captioning order with the L2 proficiency level of language learners in listening comprehension and vocabulary performance. To these ends, a computer software program was designed and 200 EFL learners (100 high-intermediate and 100 low-intermediate level students were asked to participate in the experiment. They were randomly assigned into four groups: captioned (listening to texts twice with captions, noncaptioned (listening to texts twice without captions, first captioned (listening to texts first with captions and then without captions, and second captioned (listening to texts first without captions and then with captions groups. They listened to four audio texts (i.e. short stories twice and took the listening and vocabulary tests, administered through the software. Results from t-tests and two-way ANOVAs showed that the captioned stories were more effective than the non-captioned ones. Moreover, the caption ordering had no significant effect on the participants' L2 listening comprehension and vocabulary performance. Finally, L2 proficiency level differences did not affect performance derived from caption ordering.

A test battery measuring auditory capabilities of listening panels

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ghani, Jody; Ellermeier, Wolfgang; Zimmer, Karin

2005-01-01

a battery of tests covering a larger range of auditory capabilities in order to assess individual listeners. The format of all tests is kept as 'objective' as possible by using a three-alternative forced-choice paradigm in which the subject must choose which of the sound samples is different, thus keeping...... the instruction to the subjects simple and common for all tests. Both basic (e.g. frequency discrimination) and complex (e.g. profile analysis) psychoacoustic tests are covered in the battery and a threshold of discrimination or detection is obtained for each test. Data were collected on 24 listeners who had been...... recruited for participation in an expert listening panel for evaluating the sound quality of hi-fi audio systems. The test battery data were related to the actual performance of the listeners when judging the degradation in quality produced by audio codecs....

Listening comprehension in preschoolers: the role of memory.

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Florit, Elena; Roch, Maja; Altoè, Gianmarco; Levorato, Maria Chiara

2009-11-01

The current study analyzed the relationship between text comprehension and memory skills in preschoolers. We were interested in verifying the hypothesis that memory is a specific contributor to listening comprehension in preschool children after controlling for verbal abilities. We were also interested in analyzing the developmental path of the relationship between memory skills and listening comprehension in the age range considered. Forty-four, 4-year-olds (mean age = 4 years and 6 months, SD = 4 months) and 40, 5-year-olds (mean age = 5 years and 4 months, SD = 5 months) participated in the study. The children were administered measures to evaluate listening comprehension ability (story comprehension), short-term and working memory skills (forward and backward word span), verbal intelligence and receptive vocabulary. Results showed that both short-term and working memory predicted unique and independent variance in listening comprehension after controlling for verbal abilities, with working memory explaining additional variance over and above short-term memory. The predictive power of memory skills was stable in the age range considered. Results also confirm a strong relation between verbal abilities and listening comprehension in 4- and 5-year-old children.

Cognitive function predicts listening effort performance during complex tasks in normally aging adults

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Jennine Harvey

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Purpose: This study examines whether cognitive function, as measured by the subtests of the Woodcock–Johnson III (WCJ-III assessment, predicts listening-effort performance during dual tasks across the adults of varying ages. Materials and Methods: Participants were divided into two groups. Group 1 consisted of 14 listeners (number of females = 11 who were 41–61 years old [mean = 53.18; standard deviation (SD = 5.97]. Group 2 consisted of 15 listeners (number of females = 9 who were 63–81 years old (mean = 72.07; SD = 5.11. Participants were administered the WCJ-III Memory for Words, Auditory Working Memory, Visual Matching, and Decision Speed subtests. All participants were tested in each of the following three dual-task experimental conditions, which were varying in complexity: (1 auditory word recognition + visual processing, (2 auditory working memory (word + visual processing, and (3 auditory working memory (sentence + visual processing in noise. Results: A repeated measures analysis of variance revealed that task complexity significantly affected the performance measures of auditory accuracy, visual accuracy, and processing speed. Linear regression revealed that the cognitive subtests of the WCJ-III test significantly predicted performance across dependent variable measures. Conclusion: Listening effort is significantly affected by task complexity, regardless of age. Performance on the WCJ-III test may predict listening effort in adults and may assist speech-language pathologist (SLPs to understand challenges faced by participants when subjected to noise.

Effects of music listening on stress, anxiety, and sleep quality for sleep-disturbed pregnant women.

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Liu, Yu-Hsiang; Lee, ChihChen Sophia; Yu, Chen-Hsiang; Chen, Chung-Hey

2016-01-01

Prenatal sleep disturbance has been associated with undesirable birthing outcomes. To determine the effectiveness of listening to music at home in improving sleep quality, 121 Taiwanese pregnant women with poor sleep quality (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index [PSQI] score > 5) were systematically assigned, with a random start to music listening (n = 61) or control (n = 60) group. Participants in the music listening group self-regulated listening to music in addition to receiving general prenatal care similar to that in the control group for 2 weeks. The PSQI and State-Anxiety Inventory were used to assess outcomes. ANCOVA analyses were used with the pretest scores as covariates and showed significant improvement in sleep quality, stress, and anxiety in the music listening group compared with the control group. The most frequently used music genre by participants in the experimental group was lullabies, followed by classical music and crystal baby music. This study supported the theory that 2-week music listening interventions may reduce stress, anxiety, and yield better sleep quality for sleep-disturbed pregnant women. The analysis of participants' journals also implied that the expectant mothers' choices of musical genres may correlate more with perceived prenatal benefits or the desire to interact with their unborn child.

Listening to Learn: The Status of Listening Activities in Secondary Instrumental Ensemble Classes

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Prichard, Stephanie

2013-01-01

The purpose of this study was to determine the status of listening activities as part of middle and high school instrumental music instruction. Research questions addressed teachers' beliefs in the importance of listening, outcomes associated with listening, type and frequency of listening activities, presence of guided listening, and challenges…

You know what it is: learning words through listening to hip-hop.

Science.gov (United States)

Chesley, Paula

2011-01-01

Music listeners have difficulty correctly understanding and remembering song lyrics. However, results from the present study support the hypothesis that young adults can learn African-American English (AAE) vocabulary from listening to hip-hop music. Non-African-American participants first gave free-response definitions to AAE vocabulary items, after which they answered demographic questions as well as questions addressing their social networks, their musical preferences, and their knowledge of popular culture. Results from the survey show a positive association between the number of hip-hop artists listened to and AAE comprehension vocabulary scores. Additionally, participants were more likely to know an AAE vocabulary item if the hip-hop artists they listen to use the word in their song lyrics. Together, these results suggest that young adults can acquire vocabulary through exposure to hip-hop music, a finding relevant for research on vocabulary acquisition, the construction of adolescent and adult identities, and the adoption of lexical innovations.

You know what it is: learning words through listening to hip-hop.

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Paula Chesley

Full Text Available Music listeners have difficulty correctly understanding and remembering song lyrics. However, results from the present study support the hypothesis that young adults can learn African-American English (AAE vocabulary from listening to hip-hop music. Non-African-American participants first gave free-response definitions to AAE vocabulary items, after which they answered demographic questions as well as questions addressing their social networks, their musical preferences, and their knowledge of popular culture. Results from the survey show a positive association between the number of hip-hop artists listened to and AAE comprehension vocabulary scores. Additionally, participants were more likely to know an AAE vocabulary item if the hip-hop artists they listen to use the word in their song lyrics. Together, these results suggest that young adults can acquire vocabulary through exposure to hip-hop music, a finding relevant for research on vocabulary acquisition, the construction of adolescent and adult identities, and the adoption of lexical innovations.

Measuring listening-related effort and fatigue in school-aged children using pupillometry.

Science.gov (United States)

McGarrigle, Ronan; Dawes, Piers; Stewart, Andrew J; Kuchinsky, Stefanie E; Munro, Kevin J

2017-09-01

Stress and fatigue from effortful listening may compromise well-being, learning, and academic achievement in school-aged children. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) typical of those in school classrooms on listening effort (behavioral and pupillometric) and listening-related fatigue (self-report and pupillometric) in a group of school-aged children. A sample of 41 normal-hearing children aged 8-11years performed a narrative speech-picture verification task in a condition with recommended levels of background noise ("ideal": +15dB SNR) and a condition with typical classroom background noise levels ("typical": -2dB SNR). Participants showed increased task-evoked pupil dilation in the typical listening condition compared with the ideal listening condition, consistent with an increase in listening effort. No differences were found between listening conditions in terms of performance accuracy and response time on the behavioral task. Similarly, no differences were found between listening conditions in self-report and pupillometric markers of listening-related fatigue. This is the first study to (a) examine listening-related fatigue in children using pupillometry and (b) demonstrate physiological evidence consistent with increased listening effort while listening to spoken narratives despite ceiling-level task performance accuracy. Understanding the physiological mechanisms that underpin listening-related effort and fatigue could inform intervention strategies and ultimately mitigate listening difficulties in children. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Impact of Authentic Listening Materials on Elementary EFL Learners’ Listening Skills

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Masoud Khalili Sabet

2012-09-01

Full Text Available Listening is one of the most pivotal skills, though; it is unjustly neglected throughout the literature. It was previously considered as passive skill but now those myths have been demystified. Therefore seeking the innovative trends for teaching and developing listening for EFL students are taken for granted. Lack of adequate exposure to listening and dearth of attention with regard to these issues sets the ground for authentic listening materials to fill the cited gaps in Iranian context. There have been controversial ideas based on studies in dealing with authentic listening materials. Their results ranged from totally abstinence to completely utilizing. This study intends to investigate the impact of authentic listening materials on listening skills of Elementary students at university level. To this aim, sixty students of university were randomly assigned to two groups. One group   was exposed to and received authentic listening materials (experimental group and the other groups received simplified listening materials (control group. A proficiency test (consisted of two sub-tests; listening comprehension and listening perception was used as a pretest to measure the students’ potential differences at outset of study. After the instruction sessions the same proficiency test was administered for both groups. Besides students feedback survey was given to experimental group to evaluate their attitudes and opinions regarding the materials. Analysis of quantitative study and comparing the mean scores of two groups via t-test showed that students who were exposed to authentic materials performed better in posttest. The analysis of feedback survey also denoted their satisfaction and positive attitudes to authentic listening materials.

The Effects of Hearing Aid Directional Microphone and Noise Reduction Processing on Listening Effort in Older Adults with Hearing Loss.

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Desjardins, Jamie L

2016-01-01

Older listeners with hearing loss may exert more cognitive resources to maintain a level of listening performance similar to that of younger listeners with normal hearing. Unfortunately, this increase in cognitive load, which is often conceptualized as increased listening effort, may come at the cost of cognitive processing resources that might otherwise be available for other tasks. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the independent and combined effects of a hearing aid directional microphone and a noise reduction (NR) algorithm on reducing the listening effort older listeners with hearing loss expend on a speech-in-noise task. Participants were fitted with study worn commercially available behind-the-ear hearing aids. Listening effort on a sentence recognition in noise task was measured using an objective auditory-visual dual-task paradigm. The primary task required participants to repeat sentences presented in quiet and in a four-talker babble. The secondary task was a digital visual pursuit rotor-tracking test, for which participants were instructed to use a computer mouse to track a moving target around an ellipse that was displayed on a computer screen. Each of the two tasks was presented separately and concurrently at a fixed overall speech recognition performance level of 50% correct with and without the directional microphone and/or the NR algorithm activated in the hearing aids. In addition, participants reported how effortful it was to listen to the sentences in quiet and in background noise in the different hearing aid listening conditions. Fifteen older listeners with mild sloping to severe sensorineural hearing loss participated in this study. Listening effort in background noise was significantly reduced with the directional microphones activated in the hearing aids. However, there was no significant change in listening effort with the hearing aid NR algorithm compared to no noise processing. Correlation analysis between objective and self

Impact of Multitasking on Listening Effectiveness in the Learning Environment

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Alla Kushniryk

2012-12-01

Full Text Available This experimental study evaluated the impact of multitasking and social presence on students’ performances in the learning environment. In the first live-presenter group, the participants listened to a lecture in a face-to-face environment. In the second virtual-presenter group, the participants listened on their computers to a pre-recorded lecture. The participants of these groups listened to a lecture and simultaneously wrote responses to open-ended online survey questions. While the participants of the first two groups were multitasking, those in the third group completed listening and writing tasks sequentially. It was found that multitasking significantly decreased performances on both the listening and writing tasks. The experiment also uncovered that the degree of social presence did not affect students’ performances on the listening or writing tasks in the learning environment. The perceived degree of social presence was the same in the virtual- and live-presenter groups.La présente étude expérimentale évalue les conséquences de la multiplicité des tâches et de la présence sociale sur la performance des étudiants dans l’environnement d’apprentissage. Le premier groupe a assisté à une cours donnée par un conférencier sur place. Le deuxième groupe a écouté le cours préenregistrée à partir d’un ordinateur. Les participants de ces deux groupes ont répondu simultanément en ligne aux questions ouvertes d’un sondage. Alors que les participants des deux premiers groupes ont effectué des tâches multiples simultanément, ceux du troisième groupe ont d’abord écouté puis ont répondu au sondage de façon séquentielle. Les chercheurs ont découvert que le fait de réaliser des tâches multiples entraînent une baisse importante de la performance en ce qui a trait à l’écoute et à la rédaction des réponses. L’expérience a aussi permis de découvrir que la présence en classe n’influe pas sur la

The Effects of Genre-based Instruction on Iranian EFL Learners’ Listening Comprehension

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Hossein ali Manzouri

2015-08-01

Full Text Available This study aims at uncovering the effect(s of genre-based instruction (GBI on listening proficiency among Iranian EFL learners. Moreover, it seeks to explore the relationship between effectiveness of GBI and listening proficiency. For this purpose, 68 EFL learners in two different groups at Zabol University were selected. Group A included 30 participants (12 males and 18 females, and Group B consisted of 36 participants (16 males, and 22 females. Group A was divided into treatment and control groups and underwent two listening proficiency tests for pre and posttest. Results of independent t-test indicated that treatment group outperformed the control group as the result of GBI (Sig =.001, t=3.740. Based on the proficiency test, Group B was also divided into proficient and less-proficient groups each one underwent two listening tests for pre and posttest. Results of independent t-test and paired t-test revealed both groups differed significantly as the result of GBI (Sig.= .00, correlation= .949, and .945 for proficient and less-proficient groups respectively indicating that listening proficiency is not a significant factor in effectiveness of GBI.

The Effects of Using Podcast on Listening Comprehension among Iranian Pre-intermediate EFL Learners

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Islam NamazianDost

2017-09-01

Full Text Available The purpose of the present study was to explore the effects of using podcast on listening comprehension among Iranian pre-intermediate EFL learners. To fulfill the objectives of the study a Homogeneity test (Oxford Quick Placement Test was administered among 90 students at the pre-intermediate level of Poyesh language Institute and finally 60 participants were selected. Then, they were non-randomly divided into two sub­groups, namely control and experimental groups.  Before starting the treatment, a validated teacher-made listening comprehension test was administered to students as pre-test to assess the participants' listening comprehension at the beginning of the course. Then, the experimental group received the treatment, which was teaching listening comprehension through using podcasts while the control group was taught using traditional methods of teaching listening with no multimedia source. After 20 sessions of treatment, the two groups were administered the same teacher-made listening test as post-test. Data were analyzed by Paired and Independent Samples t-­test. The findings showed that the experimental group significantly performed better than the control group. Generally, the experimental groups outperformed the control groups. The results suggest that podcasts can be used in English classes to develop listening ability among Iranian EFL learners.

Effects of Noise on English Listening Comprehension among Chinese College Students with Different Learning Styles

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Yang, Xiaohu; Jiang, Meng; Zhao, Yong

2017-01-01

This study was intended to determine whether the effects of noise on English listening comprehension would vary among Chinese college students with different learning styles. A total of 89 participants with different learning styles measured using Kolb’s (1985) Learning Style Inventory finished English listening comprehension tests in quiet and in white noise, Chinese two-talker babble, and English two-talker babble respectively. The results showed that the participants in general had significantly poorer performance in the two babble conditions than in quiet and white noise. However, the participants with assimilative and divergent learning styles performed relatively better in Chinese babble, and exhibited stable performance across the three noisy conditions, while the participants with convergent and accommodative learning styles had more impaired performance in both Chinese babble and English babble than in white noise. Moreover, of Kolb’s four learning modes, reflective observation had a facilitative effect on listening performance in Chinese babble and English babble. These findings suggest that differences in learning style might lead to differential performance in foreign language listening comprehension in noise. PMID:29085317

Effects of Noise on English Listening Comprehension among Chinese College Students with Different Learning Styles.

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Yang, Xiaohu; Jiang, Meng; Zhao, Yong

2017-01-01

This study was intended to determine whether the effects of noise on English listening comprehension would vary among Chinese college students with different learning styles. A total of 89 participants with different learning styles measured using Kolb's (1985) Learning Style Inventory finished English listening comprehension tests in quiet and in white noise, Chinese two-talker babble, and English two-talker babble respectively. The results showed that the participants in general had significantly poorer performance in the two babble conditions than in quiet and white noise. However, the participants with assimilative and divergent learning styles performed relatively better in Chinese babble, and exhibited stable performance across the three noisy conditions, while the participants with convergent and accommodative learning styles had more impaired performance in both Chinese babble and English babble than in white noise. Moreover, of Kolb's four learning modes, reflective observation had a facilitative effect on listening performance in Chinese babble and English babble. These findings suggest that differences in learning style might lead to differential performance in foreign language listening comprehension in noise.

The role of planum temporale in processing accent variation in spoken language comprehension.

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Adank, P.M.; Noordzij, M.L.; Hagoort, P.

2012-01-01

A repetitionsuppression functional magnetic resonance imaging paradigm was used to explore the neuroanatomical substrates of processing two types of acoustic variationspeaker and accentduring spoken sentence comprehension. Recordings were made for two speakers and two accents: Standard Dutch and a

Subjective and psychophysiological indices of listening effort in a competing-talker task

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Mackersie, Carol L.; Cones, Heather

2010-01-01

Background The effects of noise and other competing backgrounds on speech recognition performance are well documented. There is less information, however, on listening effort and stress experienced by listeners during a speech recognition task that requires inhibition of competing sounds. Purpose The purpose was a) to determine if psychophysiological indices of listening effort were more sensitive than performance measures (percentage correct) obtained near ceiling level during a competing speech task b) to determine the relative sensitivity of four psychophysiological measures to changes in task demand and c) to determine the relationships between changes in psychophysiological measures and changes in subjective ratings of stress and workload. Research Design A repeated-measures experimental design was used to examine changes in performance, psychophysiological measures, and subjective ratings in response to increasing task demand. Study Sample Fifteen adults with normal hearing participated in the study. The mean age of the participants was 27 (range: 24–54). Data Collection and Analysis Psychophysiological recordings of heart rate, skin conductance, skin temperature, and electromyographic activity (EMG) were obtained during listening tasks of varying demand. Materials from the Dichotic Digits Test were used to modulate task demand. The three levels of tasks demand were: single digits presented to one ear (low-demand reference condition), single digits presented simultaneously to both ears (medium demand), and a series of two digits presented simultaneously to both ears (high demand). Participants were asked to repeat all the digits they heard while psychophysiological activity was recorded simultaneously. Subjective ratings of task load were obtained after each condition using the NASA-TLX questionnaire. Repeated-measures analyses of variance were completed for each measure using task demand and session as factors. Results Mean performance was higher than 96

Subjective and psychophysiological indexes of listening effort in a competing-talker task.

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Mackersie, Carol L; Cones, Heather

2011-02-01

The effects of noise and other competing backgrounds on speech recognition performance are well documented. There is less information, however, on listening effort and stress experienced by listeners during a speech-recognition task that requires inhibition of competing sounds. The purpose was (a) to determine if psychophysiological indexes of listening effort were more sensitive than performance measures (percentage correct) obtained near ceiling level during a competing speech task, (b) to determine the relative sensitivity of four psychophysiological measures to changes in task demand, and (c) to determine the relationships between changes in psychophysiological measures and changes in subjective ratings of stress and workload. A repeated-measures experimental design was used to examine changes in performance, psychophysiological measures, and subjective ratings in response to increasing task demand. Fifteen adults with normal hearing participated in the study. The mean age of the participants was 27 (range: 24-54). Psychophysiological recordings of heart rate, skin conductance, skin temperature, and electromyographic (EMG) activity were obtained during listening tasks of varying demand. Materials from the Dichotic Digits Test were used to modulate task demand. The three levels of task demand were single digits presented to one ear (low-demand reference condition), single digits presented simultaneously to both ears (medium demand), and a series of two digits presented simultaneously to both ears (high demand). Participants were asked to repeat all the digits they heard, while psychophysiological activity was recorded simultaneously. Subjective ratings of task load were obtained after each condition using the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Task Load Index questionnaire. Repeated-measures analyses of variance were completed for each measure using task demand and session as factors. Mean performance was higher than 96% for all listening tasks. There

The role of planum temporale in processing accent variation in spoken language comprehension

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Adank, P.M.; Noordzij, M.L.; Hagoort, P.

2012-01-01

A repetition–suppression functional magnetic resonance imaging paradigm was used to explore the neuroanatomical substrates of processing two types of acoustic variation—speaker and accent—during spoken sentence comprehension. Recordings were made for two speakers and two accents: Standard Dutch and

Professional Listening Competence Promoting Well-Being at Work in the Legal Context

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Ala-Kortesmaa, Sanna; Isotalus, Pekka

2015-01-01

This qualitative cross-cultural study sought to contribute to the understanding of listening competence, dialogic listening, and the use of human agency in promoting well-being at work. The participant groups ("N" = 103) consisted of "n" = 76 U.S.-American and "n" = 27 Finnish attorneys. Results suggest that in order…

Hear here: children with hearing loss learn words by listening.

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Lew, Joyce; Purcell, Alison A; Doble, Maree; Lim, Lynne H

2014-10-01

Early use of hearing devices and family participation in auditory-verbal therapy has been associated with age-appropriate verbal communication outcomes for children with hearing loss. However, there continues to be great variability in outcomes across different oral intervention programmes and little consensus on how therapists should prioritise goals at each therapy session for positive clinical outcomes. This pilot intervention study aimed to determine whether therapy goals that concentrate on teaching preschool children with hearing loss how to distinguish between words in a structured listening programme is effective, and whether gains in speech perception skills impact on vocabulary and speech development without them having to be worked on directly in therapy. A multiple baseline across subjects design was used in this within-subject controlled study. 3 children aged between 2:6 and 3:1 with moderate-severe to severe-profound hearing loss were recruited for a 6-week intervention programme. Each participant commenced at different stages of the 10-staged listening programme depending on their individual listening skills at recruitment. Speech development and vocabulary assessments were conducted before and after the training programme in addition to speech perception assessments and probes conducted throughout the intervention programme. All participants made gains in speech perception skills as well as vocabulary and speech development. Speech perception skills acquired were noted to be maintained a week after intervention. In addition, all participants were able to generalise speech perception skills learnt to words that had not been used in the intervention programme. This pilot study found that therapy directed at listening alone is promising and that it may have positive impact on speech and vocabulary development without these goals having to be incorporated into a therapy programme. Although a larger study is necessary for more conclusive findings, the

Exploring the Causes of Listening Comprehension Anxiety from EFL Saudi Learners’ Perspectives: A Pilot Study

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Ibrahim Otair

2017-08-01

Full Text Available Anxiety is an important factor in foreign language learning. Very few studies have been done on English as a Foreign Language (EFL Saudi students in listening classes. Therefore, this pilot study was aimed at exploring the causes of listening comprehension anxiety from EFL Saudi learners’ perspectives at Majmaah University, Saudi Arabia. The pilot study involved two students who were selected based on the following criteria: 1 Only Saudi male undergraduate students who enrolled in Preparatory Year Program (PYP at Majmaah University would be involved in this study, 2 The students who had studied or lived in native English speaking countries would be excluded. The researcher used pseudonyms to refer to the participants as Mohammad and Ismail. This study employed a qualitative case study research design. The data were collected through Semi-structured interviews with the participants. The interview sessions were audiotaped and transcribed. The results show that the participants experienced a high level of anxiety when doing the listening comprehension tasks. Three main causes of listening comprehension anxiety emerged from this study: 1 the problematic nature of listening comprehension, 2 the classroom atmosphere, and 3 the low English proficiency of the students.

How Spoken Language Comprehension is Achieved by Older Listeners in Difficult Listening Situations.

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Schneider, Bruce A; Avivi-Reich, Meital; Daneman, Meredyth

2016-01-01

Comprehending spoken discourse in noisy situations is likely to be more challenging to older adults than to younger adults due to potential declines in the auditory, cognitive, or linguistic processes supporting speech comprehension. These challenges might force older listeners to reorganize the ways in which they perceive and process speech, thereby altering the balance between the contributions of bottom-up versus top-down processes to speech comprehension. The authors review studies that investigated the effect of age on listeners' ability to follow and comprehend lectures (monologues), and two-talker conversations (dialogues), and the extent to which individual differences in lexical knowledge and reading comprehension skill relate to individual differences in speech comprehension. Comprehension was evaluated after each lecture or conversation by asking listeners to answer multiple-choice questions regarding its content. Once individual differences in speech recognition for words presented in babble were compensated for, age differences in speech comprehension were minimized if not eliminated. However, younger listeners benefited more from spatial separation than did older listeners. Vocabulary knowledge predicted the comprehension scores of both younger and older listeners when listening was difficult, but not when it was easy. However, the contribution of reading comprehension to listening comprehension appeared to be independent of listening difficulty in younger adults but not in older adults. The evidence suggests (1) that most of the difficulties experienced by older adults are due to age-related auditory declines, and (2) that these declines, along with listening difficulty, modulate the degree to which selective linguistic and cognitive abilities are engaged to support listening comprehension in difficult listening situations. When older listeners experience speech recognition difficulties, their attentional resources are more likely to be deployed to

Does Listening to Mozart Affect Listening Ability?

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Bowman, Becki J.; Punyanunt-Carter, Narissra; Cheah, Tsui Yi; Watson, W. Joe; Rubin, Rebecca B.

2007-01-01

Considerable research has been conducted testing Rauscher, Shaw, and Ky's (1993) Mozart Effect (ME). This study attempts to replicate, in part, research that tested the ME on listening comprehension abilities. Also included in this study is an examination of control group issues in current day research. We hypothesized that students who listen to…

Enhancing Foreign Language Learning through Listening Strategies Delivered in L1: An Experimental Study

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Hitendra Pillay

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Listening used in language teaching refers to a complex process that allows us to understand spoken language. The current study, conducted in Iran with an experimental design, investigated the effectiveness of teaching listening strategies delivered in L1 (Persian and its effect on listening comprehension in L2. Five listening strategies: Guessing, making inferences, identifying topics, repetition, and note-taking were taught over 14 weeks during a semester. Sixty lower intermediate female participants came from two EFL classrooms in an English language institute. The experimental class (n = 30 who listened to their classroom activities performed better (t value = 10.083 than the control class using a methodology that led learners through five listening strategies in Persian. The same teacher taught the students in the control class (n = 30, who listened to the same classroom listening activities without any of the above listening strategies. A pre and post listening test made by a group of experts in the language institute assessed the effect of teaching listening strategies delivered in L1. Results gathered on the post intervention listening test revealed that listening strategies delivered in L1 led to a statistically significant improvement in their discrete listening scores compared with the control group.

THE CORRELATION BETWEEN STUDENTS’ FREQUENCY OF LISTENING TO ENGLISH SONGS AND THEIR LISTENING ACHIEVEMENT

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Elvira Rosyida M. R.

2016-04-01

Full Text Available This study is aimed at investigating whether there is a significant correlation between students’ frequency of listening to English songs and their listening achievement This study was conducted at the first year students of State Senior High School 9 Bandarlampung, Lampung. A descriptive quantitative was employed in this study which used ex-post facto design and the data were taken from questionnaire, semi-structured interview, and listening test. The data were analyzed by using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS version 16.0. The hypothesis was tested by using Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient. The test result showed that there is a significant correlation between students’ frequency of listening to English songs and their listening achievement. From the result of interview, it showed that most of the students believe that by having high frequency of listening to English songs, it helps them in recognizing the spoken language and get high score in listening ability.Keywords: listening to English song, listening ability, frequency of listening

Het poëtisch accent. Drie literaire genres in zeventiende-eeuwse Nederlandse pamfletten

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Vrieler, J.A.

2007-01-01

'The poetic accent. Three literary genres in seventeenth-century Dutch pamphlets' focuses on the way the conviction works, by studying pamphlets containing sonnets, songs and echo-poetry. I distinguish between structural and affective functions of poetry. Within the composition of a pamphlet, poetry

Developing an Instrument for Iranian EFL Learners’ Listening Comprehension Problems and Listening Strategies

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Sara Noroozi

2014-06-01

Full Text Available In the body of literature on listening strategies to EFL learners, what seems to be lacking is that the focus is on teaching listening strategies to learners with little attention to their listening comprehension problems. No local research has been conducted on the nature of the Iranian tertiary level students' EFL listening comprehension problems or strategies. Therefore, no instrument is available to investigate these constructs. This paper reports the findings of a study that made an attempt to develop and test an instrument that will aid researchers identify students’ specific listening problems and listening strategy repertoire. The instrument was developed by integrating and validating the available instruments in the related literature. The two developed questionnaires were: the Listening Comprehension Problems Questionnaire (LCPQ and the Listening Strategy Use Questionnaire (LSUQ. Problems related to designing and testing this instrument is shared and the modifications made to it are presented. The instrument is expected to be useful for researchers interested to study the area of EFL listening in a similar setting.

Happy creativity: Listening to happy music facilitates divergent thinking.

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Ritter, Simone M; Ferguson, Sam

2017-01-01

Creativity can be considered one of the key competencies for the twenty-first century. It provides us with the capacity to deal with the opportunities and challenges that are part of our complex and fast-changing world. The question as to what facilitates creative cognition-the ability to come up with creative ideas, problem solutions and products-is as old as the human sciences, and various means to enhance creative cognition have been studied. Despite earlier scientific studies demonstrating a beneficial effect of music on cognition, the effect of music listening on creative cognition has remained largely unexplored. The current study experimentally tests whether listening to specific types of music (four classical music excerpts systematically varying on valance and arousal), as compared to a silence control condition, facilitates divergent and convergent creativity. Creativity was higher for participants who listened to 'happy music' (i.e., classical music high on arousal and positive mood) while performing the divergent creativity task, than for participants who performed the task in silence. No effect of music was found for convergent creativity. In addition to the scientific contribution, the current findings may have important practical implications. Music listening can be easily integrated into daily life and may provide an innovative means to facilitate creative cognition in an efficient way in various scientific, educational and organizational settings when creative thinking is needed.

The Probability Evaluation Game: An Instrument to Highlight the Skill of Reflexive Listening

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Butler, Clare

2016-01-01

This paper describes the development of the Probability Evaluation Game (PEG): an innovative teaching instrument that emphasises the sophistication of listening and highlights listening as a key skill for accounting practitioners. Whilst in a roundtable format, playing PEG involves participants individually evaluating a series of probability terms…

Everyday listeners' impressions of speech produced by individuals with adductor spasmodic dysphonia.

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Nagle, Kathleen F; Eadie, Tanya L; Yorkston, Kathryn M

2015-01-01

Individuals with adductor spasmodic dysphonia (ADSD) have reported that unfamiliar communication partners appear to judge them as sneaky, nervous or not intelligent, apparently based on the quality of their speech; however, there is minimal research into the actual everyday perspective of listening to ADSD speech. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impressions of listeners hearing ADSD speech for the first time using a mixed-methods design. Everyday listeners were interviewed following sessions in which they made ratings of ADSD speech. A semi-structured interview approach was used and data were analyzed using thematic content analysis. Three major themes emerged: (1) everyday listeners make judgments about speakers with ADSD; (2) ADSD speech does not sound normal to everyday listeners; and (3) rating overall severity is difficult for everyday listeners. Participants described ADSD speech similarly to existing literature; however, some listeners inaccurately extrapolated speaker attributes based solely on speech samples. Listeners may draw erroneous conclusions about individuals with ADSD and these biases may affect the communicative success of these individuals. Results have implications for counseling individuals with ADSD, as well as the need for education and awareness about ADSD. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

How Social Psychological Factors May Modulate Auditory and Cognitive Functioning During Listening.

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Pichora-Fuller, M Kathleen

2016-01-01

The framework for understanding effortful listening (FUEL) draws on psychological theories of cognition and motivation. In the present article, theories of social-cognitive psychology are related to the FUEL. Listening effort is defined in our consensus as the deliberate allocation of mental resources to overcome obstacles in goal pursuit when carrying out a task that involves listening. Listening effort depends not only on hearing difficulties and task demands but also on the listener's motivation to expend mental effort in challenging situations. Listeners' cost/benefit evaluations involve appraisals of listening demands, their own capacity, and the importance of listening goals. Social psychological factors can affect a listener's actual and self-perceived auditory and cognitive abilities, especially when those abilities may be insufficient to readily meet listening demands. Whether or not listeners experience stress depends not only on how demanding a situation is relative to their actual abilities but also on how they appraise their capacity to meet those demands. The self-perception or appraisal of one's abilities can be lowered by poor self-efficacy or negative stereotypes. Stress may affect performance in a given situation and chronic stress can have deleterious effects on many aspects of health, including auditory and cognitive functioning. Social support can offset demands and mitigate stress; however, the burden of providing support may stress the significant other. Some listeners cope by avoiding challenging situations and withdrawing from social participation. Extending the FUEL using social-cognitive psychological theories may provide valuable insights into how effortful listening could be reduced by adopting health-promoting approaches to rehabilitation.

Music Listening Is Creative

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Kratus, John

2017-01-01

Active music listening is a creative activity in that the listener constructs a uniquely personal musical experience. Most approaches to teaching music listening emphasize a conceptual approach in which students learn to identify various characteristics of musical sound. Unfortunately, this type of listening is rarely done outside of schools. This…

Using Bona Adaptation to Improve Accent Defects as a Voice Training Method

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Aycan, Kivanc

2017-01-01

Purpose: In this research, it is observed that if solfeggio syllables, consonants, and vowels are spoken properly, voice intensity (accent), duration, pitch (high pitch-low pitch) and intonation (the ability to carry a musical voice) related to proper pitch level. In this study, it is observed that rhythmic structures do not form without…

How Transitional Probabilities and the Edge Effect Contribute to Listeners' Phonological Bootstrapping Success

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Sohail, Juwairia; Johnson, Elizabeth K.

2016-01-01

Much of what we know about the development of listeners' word segmentation strategies originates from the artificial language-learning literature. However, many artificial speech streams designed to study word segmentation lack a salient cue found in all natural languages: utterance boundaries. In this study, participants listened to a…

The Effect of Mindful Listening Instruction on Listening Sensitivity and Enjoyment

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Anderson, William Todd

2012-01-01

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of Mindful Listening Instruction on Music Listening Sensitivity and Music Listening Enjoyment. The type of mindfulness investigated in this study was of the social-psychological type, which shares both commonalities with and distinctions from meditative mindfulness. Enhanced context awareness,…

The Impact of Mobile Learning on Listening Anxiety and Listening Comprehension

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Rahimi, Mehrak; Soleymani, Elham

2015-01-01

This study aimed at investigating the impact of mobile learning on EFL learners' listening anxiety and listening comprehension. Fifty students of two intermediate English courses were selected and sampled as the experimental (n = 25) and control (n = 25) groups. Students' entry level of listening anxiety was assessed by foreign language listening…

The Effect of Transcribing on Elementary Iranian EFL Learners’ Listening Comprehension

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Mohammad Afsharrad

2015-12-01

Full Text Available This study is motivated by the gap existing between theory and practice in teaching listening. Most of the techniques used to teach listening put more emphasis on top-down processing while listeners’ problems are more of perceptive ones (bottom-up. In order to address the pervasive decoding problem in listening, this study suggests using transcribing exercise as an input enhancement device and investigates its effect on beginning learners’ listening ability. To this end, 31 learners participated in the study. The control group did not have any transcribing practice while the experimental group received transcribing exercise. In the data analysis step, an independent samples t test was employed to compare the two groups. The results show that transcribing has a significant positive effect on beginning learners’ listening comprehension. The findings of the study as well as advantages of transcribing exercise are discussed. Implications of the study and scope for future research are also addressed.

Developing an Instrument for Iranian EFL Learners' Listening Comprehension Problems and Listening Strategies

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Noroozi, Sara Sara; Sim, Tam Shu; Nimehchisalem, Vahid; Zareian, Gholamreza

2014-01-01

In the body of literature on listening strategies to EFL learners, what seems to be lacking is that the focus is on teaching listening strategies to learners with little attention to their listening comprehension problems. No local research has been conducted on the nature of the Iranian tertiary level students' EFL listening comprehension…

Acoustic-Phonetic Versus Lexical Processing in Nonnative Listeners Differing in Their Dominant Language.

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Shi, Lu-Feng; Koenig, Laura L

2016-09-01

Nonnative listeners have difficulty recognizing English words due to underdeveloped acoustic-phonetic and/or lexical skills. The present study used Boothroyd and Nittrouer's (1988)j factor to tease apart these two components of word recognition. Participants included 15 native English and 29 native Russian listeners. Fourteen and 15 of the Russian listeners reported English (ED) and Russian (RD) to be their dominant language, respectively. Listeners were presented 119 consonant-vowel-consonant real and nonsense words in speech-spectrum noise at +6 dB SNR. Responses were scored for word and phoneme recognition, the logarithmic quotient of which yielded j. Word and phoneme recognition was comparable between native and ED listeners but poorer in RD listeners. Analysis of j indicated less effective use of lexical information in RD than in native and ED listeners. Lexical processing was strongly correlated with the length of residence in the United States. Language background is important for nonnative word recognition. Lexical skills can be regarded as nativelike in ED nonnative listeners. Compromised word recognition in ED listeners is unlikely a result of poor lexical processing. Performance should be interpreted with caution for listeners dominant in their first language, whose word recognition is affected by both lexical and acoustic-phonetic factors.

Effects of Listening to Music on the Comfort of Chemotherapy Patients.

Science.gov (United States)

Bilgiç, Şebnem; Acaroğlu, Rengin

2017-06-01

The symptoms of an illness that requires chemotherapy and the corresponding effects of such treatment exacerbate the pain and discomfort that patients typically experience. Listening to music may help patients cope with chemotherapy symptoms, thereby contributing to their physical ease and well-being. Seventy patients who were receiving treatment at the outpatient chemotherapy unit were invited to participate in this work. During chemotherapy sessions and the week after the sessions, the patients listened to music with headphones. The occurrence of chemotherapy symptoms such as pain, tiredness, nausea, depression, anxiety, drowsiness, lack of appetite, not feeling well, and shortness of breath in the intervention group was statistically significant after listening to music ( p listening to music effectively reduces the severity of chemotherapy symptoms and enhances the comfort of patients receiving the treatment.

The Role of Task and Listener Characteristics in Second Language Listening

Science.gov (United States)

Brunfaut, Tineke; Révész, Andrea

2015-01-01

This study investigated the relationship between second language (L2) listening and a range of task and listener characteristics. More specifically, for a group of 93 nonnative English speakers, the researchers examined the extent to which linguistic complexity of the listening task input and response, and speed and explicitness of the input, were…

Social Connectedness and Perceived Listening Effort in Adult Cochlear Implant Users: A Grounded Theory to Establish Content Validity for a New Patient-Reported Outcome Measure.

Science.gov (United States)

Hughes, Sarah E; Hutchings, Hayley A; Rapport, Frances L; McMahon, Catherine M; Boisvert, Isabelle

2018-02-08

Individuals with hearing loss often report a need for increased effort when listening, particularly in challenging acoustic environments. Despite audiologists' recognition of the impact of listening effort on individuals' quality of life, there are currently no standardized clinical measures of listening effort, including patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs). To generate items and content for a new PROM, this qualitative study explored the perceptions, understanding, and experiences of listening effort in adults with severe-profound sensorineural hearing loss before and after cochlear implantation. Three focus groups (1 to 3) were conducted. Purposive sampling was used to recruit 17 participants from a cochlear implant (CI) center in the United Kingdom. The participants included adults (n = 15, mean age = 64.1 years, range 42 to 84 years) with acquired severe-profound sensorineural hearing loss who satisfied the UK's national candidacy criteria for cochlear implantation and their normal-hearing significant others (n = 2). Participants were CI candidates who used hearing aids (HAs) and were awaiting CI surgery or CI recipients who used a unilateral CI or a CI and contralateral HA (CI + HA). Data from a pilot focus group conducted with 2 CI recipients were included in the analysis. The data, verbatim transcripts of the focus group proceedings, were analyzed qualitatively using constructivist grounded theory (GT) methodology. A GT of listening effort in cochlear implantation was developed from participants' accounts. The participants provided rich, nuanced descriptions of the complex and multidimensional nature of their listening effort. Interpreting and integrating these descriptions through GT methodology, listening effort was described as the mental energy required to attend to and process the auditory signal, as well as the effort required to adapt to, and compensate for, a hearing loss. Analyses also suggested that listening effort for most participants was

[Effectiveness of mental health training including active listening for managers].

Science.gov (United States)

Ikegami, Kazunori; Tagawa, Yoshimasa; Mafune, Kosuke; Hiro, Hisanori; Nagata, Shoji

2008-07-01

We carried out mental health training with Active Listening for managers of A company, which was the electronics manufacturing company with 1,900 employees. The purpose of the present study was to examine the effect on managers and employees in the workplace on the training. The subjects were all persons who managed regular employees directly in A company. We performed the investigation from May 2006 to February 2007 and carried out the training from September to November in 2006. The contents of the training were from the chapter on "The education and training of managers" in the "The guideline for maintenance and promotion of mental health for workers" issued by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in Japan in 2006. We divided the contents and implemented them in two sessions. "Responding to worker consultation" was one of the contents of Active Listening. In the first session, we explained about Active Listening, and in the second session we ran a practical involving Inventive Experiential Listening. One month later, we distributed material summarizing the training to all the participants. To evaluate the effect of the training, we conducted surveys of the participants using the Active Listening Attitude Scale (ALAS), prior to and after the training, and distributed questionnaires, post-training about the contents of the training and changes of consciousness and action. Furthermore, we performed surveys pre- and post-training using the Brief Job Stress Questionnaire (BJSQ) 12 items version, distributed to all employees. We evaluated the effect of the training on 124 managers and 908 workers by the investigation. The score of each subscale was analyzed by repeated measures analysis of variance. There were no significant differences in the scores of both the "Listening attitude" and "Listening skill" subscales of ALAS between pre-training and post-training, but the mean scores post-training were higher than those pre-training on both subscales. There were

The effect of short-time active listening training.

Science.gov (United States)

Tatsumi, Asami; Sumiyoshi, Kenichi; Kawaguchi, Hitomi; Sano, Yukiko

2010-01-01

We conducted mental health training incorporating active listening for managers at a site of a general chemical company with 1,400 employees. Our purpose was to clarify the effect of active listening training of 2.5h. All subjects were managers. The mental health training was given to 229 managers, 21 times from May 2007 until March 2008. Surveys were conducted from May 2007 to September 2008. The training sessions were conducted in a company meeting room, starting at 2:00 p.m. The importance and significance of listening as a mental health measure and methods of active listening were explained in the training. Afterward, role-playing and follow-up discussions were done twice each. In summaries, participants wrote down what they noticed about listening and gave group presentations. The instructor commented on the presentations, and ended the session by passing out and explaining a paper summarizing what is important in listening. The training was evaluated with a questionnaire distributed at the completion of training, and questionnaires on implementation of what was learned were distributed 1, 3, and 6 mo later. The Active Listening Attitude Scale (ALAS; composed of two scales for method of listening and listening attitude) developed by Mishima et al. was also used before and 1, 3, and 6 mo after the training. In questionnaires distributed on the same day after training, 60% of the 212 respondents said the training time was just right, and 30.1% felt it was too short. The difficulty level of the training was considered appropriate by 77.8%, and 79.7% intended to implement what they had learned. Overall satisfaction was high at 85.9%. In the questionnaire 6 mo after training, 81.4% of the 145 respondents remembered the content of the training and 49.7% said they were practicing what they had learned. They responded that their conversations with subordinates about non-work topics had increased, and communication and support at work had become smoother. ALAS was

Binaural pitch perception in hearing-impaired listeners

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Dau, Torsten; Santurette, Sébastien; Strelcyk, Olaf

2007-01-01

When two white noises differing only in phase in a particular frequency range are presented simultaneously each to one of our ears, a pitch sensation may be perceived inside the head. This phenomenon, called ’binaural pitch’ or ’dichotic pitch’, can be produced by frequency-dependent interaural...... phasedifference patterns. The evaluation of these interaural phase differences depends on the functionality of the binaural auditory system and the spectro-temporal information at its input. A melody recognition task was performed in the present study using pure-tone stimuli and six different types of noises...... that can generate a binaural pitch sensation. Normal-hearing listeners and hearing-impaired listeners with different kinds of hearing impairment participated in the experiment....

Music to whose ears? The effect of social norms on young people's risk perceptions of hearing damage resulting from their music listening behavior.

Science.gov (United States)

Gilliver, Megan; Carter, Lyndal; Macoun, Denise; Rosen, Jenny; Williams, Warwick

2012-01-01

Professional and community concerns about the potentially dangerous noise levels for common leisure activities has led to increased interest on providing hearing health information to participants. However, noise reduction programmes aimed at leisure activities (such as music listening) face a unique difficulty. The noise source that is earmarked for reduction by hearing health professionals is often the same one that is viewed as pleasurable by participants. Furthermore, these activities often exist within a social setting, with additional peer influences that may influence behavior. The current study aimed to gain a better understanding of social-based factors that may influence an individual's motivation to engage in positive hearing health behaviors. Four hundred and eighty-four participants completed questionnaires examining their perceptions of the hearing risk associated with listening to music listening and asking for estimates of their own and their peer's music listening behaviors. Participants were generally aware of the potential risk posed by listening to personal stereo players (PSPs) and the volumes likely to be most dangerous. Approximately one in five participants reported using listening volumes at levels perceived to be dangerous, an incidence rate in keeping with other studies measuring actual PSP use. However, participants showed less awareness of peers' behavior, consistently overestimating the volumes at which they believed their friends listened. Misperceptions of social norms relating to listening behavior may decrease individuals' perceptions of susceptibility to hearing damage. The consequences of hearing health promotion are discussed, along with suggestions relating to the development of new programs.

Effectiveness of Music Listening in Patients With Total Knee Replacement During CPM Rehabilitation.

Science.gov (United States)

Hsu, Chih-Chung; Chen, Wei-Ming; Chen, Su-Ru; Tseng, Yen-Ting; Lin, Pi-Chu

2016-01-01

This study investigated the effects of music listening on the anxiety, heart rate variability (HRV), and joint range of motion (ROM) of patients undergoing continuous passive motion (CPM) after total knee replacement surgery. An experimental design was used. Participants in the experimental group (n = 49) listened to music from 10 min before receiving CPM until the end of the session (25 min in total) on the first and second day following surgery, whereas participants in the control group (n = 42) did not listen to music but rested quietly in bed starting 10 min before and throughout CPM. Compared with the control group, the experimental group exhibited significantly lower anxiety levels (p CPM angles (p < .05) during treatment and increased active flexion ROM (p < .05) upon discharge. The low-frequency (LF)/high-frequency (HF) power ratio, normalized LF HRV, and normalized HF HRV of the two groups differed significantly, indicating that the patients in the experimental group had greater parasympathetic activity compared with those in the control group. Music listening can effectively reduce patient anxiety and enhance the ROM of their joints during postoperative rehabilitation. Health-care practitioners should consider including music listening as a routine practice for postoperative rehabilitation following orthopedic surgery. © The Author(s) 2015.

Active Listening Delays Attentional Disengagement and Saccadic Eye Movements.

Science.gov (United States)

Lester, Benjamin D; Vecera, Shaun P

2017-05-23

Successful goal-directed visual behavior depends on efficient disengagement of attention. Attention must be withdrawn from its current focus before being redeployed to a new object or internal process. Previous research has demonstrated that occupying cognitive processes with a secondary cellular phone conversation impairs attentional functioning and driving behavior. For example, attentional processing is significantly impacted by concurrent cell phone use, resulting in decreased explicit memory for on-road information. Here, we examined the impact of a critical component of cell-phone use-active listening-on the effectiveness of attentional disengagement. In the gap task-a saccadic manipulation of attentional disengagement-we measured saccade latencies while participants performed a secondary active listening task. Saccadic latencies significantly increased under an active listening load only when attention needed to be disengaged, indicating that active listening delays a disengagement operation. Simple dual-task interference did not account for the observed results. Rather, active cognitive engagement is required for measurable disengagement slowing to be observed. These results have implications for investigations of attention, gaze behavior, and distracted driving. Secondary tasks such as active listening or cell-phone conversations can have wide-ranging impacts on cognitive functioning, potentially impairing relatively elementary operations of attentional function, including disengagement.

Pre-listening stage and teaching listening from the adult learner’s perspective

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Ždímalová, Hana; Anýžová, P.

2012-01-01

Roč. 24, č. 2 /supplementary issue/ (2012), s. 23-38 ISSN 1210-0196. [New Ways to Teaching and Learning . Hrade Králové, 14.09.2012-15.09.2012] Institutional support: RVO:68378092 Keywords : listening comprehension * listening instruction * communicative competence * pre-listening stage Subject RIV: AI - Linguistics

The Effects of Multiple Exemplar Instruction on the Relation between Listener and Intraverbal Categorization Repertoires

Science.gov (United States)

Lechago, Sarah A.; Carr, James E.; Kisamore, April N.; Grow, Laura L.

2015-01-01

We evaluated the effects of multiple exemplar instruction (MEI) on the relation between listener and intraverbal categorization repertoires of six typically developing preschool-age children using a nonconcurrent multiple-probe design across participants. After failing to emit intraverbal categorization responses following listener categorization…

Helping Students Develop Listening Comprehension

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cárdenas Beltrán Melba Libia

2000-08-01

Full Text Available Listening practice is often neglected or handled inappropriately in the teachinglearning process. This poses problem because listening is an integral part of conversations. Oral skills without equally welldeveloped listening abilities are of little practical value. In this article, I will take a look at issues related to the area of listening that may be considered when guiding students toward developing listening comprehension.

The Art of Listening in an Educational Perspective—Listening reception in the mother tongue

OpenAIRE

Adelmann, Kent

2012-01-01

The purpose is to contribute to the theory and practice of listening reception as one of the four language arts in Swedish as a school subject. The object of inquiry is The Art of Listening (Adelmann 2009) as a Swedish example from a Scandinavian context, compared to mainstream listening research in the USA. The problem explored is: How can we, as researchers and teachers, handle some of the problems within international listening research and adapt listening research to a Scandinavian contex...

Cultural and Demographic Factors Influencing Noise Exposure Estimates from Use of Portable Listening Devices in an Urban Environment

Science.gov (United States)

Fligor, Brian J.; Levey, Sandra; Levey, Tania

2014-01-01

Purpose: This study examined listening levels and duration of portable listening devices (PLDs) used by people with diversity of ethnicity, education, music genre, and PLD manufacturer. The goal was to estimate participants' PLD noise exposure and identify factors influencing user behavior. Method: This study measured listening levels of 160…

Listeners remember music they like.

Science.gov (United States)

Stalinski, Stephanie M; Schellenberg, E Glenn

2013-05-01

Emotions have important and powerful effects on cognitive processes. Although it is well established that memory influences liking, we sought to document whether liking influences memory. A series of 6 experiments examined whether liking is related to recognition memory for novel music excerpts. In the general method, participants listened to a set of music excerpts and rated how much they liked each one. After a delay, they heard the same excerpts plus an equal number of novel excerpts and made recognition judgments, which were then examined in conjunction with liking ratings. Higher liking ratings were associated with improved recognition performance after a 10-min (Experiment 1) or 24-hr (Experiment 2) delay between the exposure and test phases. The findings were similar when participants made liking ratings after recognition judgments (Experiments 3 and 6), when possible confounding effects of similarity and familiarity were held constant (Experiment 4), and when a deeper level of processing was encouraged for all the excerpts (Experiment 5). Recognition did not vary as a function of liking for previously unheard excerpts (Experiment 6). The results implicate a direct association between liking and recognition. Considered jointly with previous findings, it is now clear that listeners tend to like music that they remember and to remember music that they like.

Effects of listening comprehension training on listening and reading

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Aarnoutse, C.A.J.; Van den Bos, K.P.; Brand-Gruwel, S.

1998-01-01

In this study the effects of providing text strategy instruction in a listening mode on listening and reading comprehension of experimental and control groups of 9- to 11-year-old poor readers were examined. All students were very poor in decoding and poor in reading comprehension. In addition, half

Neurodynamic evaluation of hearing aid features using EEG correlates of listening effort.

Science.gov (United States)

Bernarding, Corinna; Strauss, Daniel J; Hannemann, Ronny; Seidler, Harald; Corona-Strauss, Farah I

2017-06-01

In this study, we propose a novel estimate of listening effort using electroencephalographic data. This method is a translation of our past findings, gained from the evoked electroencephalographic activity, to the oscillatory EEG activity. To test this technique, electroencephalographic data from experienced hearing aid users with moderate hearing loss were recorded, wearing hearing aids. The investigated hearing aid settings were: a directional microphone combined with a noise reduction algorithm in a medium and a strong setting, the noise reduction setting turned off, and a setting using omnidirectional microphones without any noise reduction. The results suggest that the electroencephalographic estimate of listening effort seems to be a useful tool to map the exerted effort of the participants. In addition, the results indicate that a directional processing mode can reduce the listening effort in multitalker listening situations.

Do Korean L2 learners have a "foreign accent" when they speak French? Production and perception experiments on rhythm and intonation

OpenAIRE

Grandon , Bénédicte; Yoo , Hiyon

2014-01-01

International audience; French and Korean are two languages with similar prosodic characteristics as far as rhythm and intonation are concerned. In this paper, we present the results of production and perception tests where we describe the prosodic characteristics of Korean L2 learners of French. Our aim is to analyze the impression of "foreign accent" for two prosodic components (intonation and rhythm) of speech produced by Korean L2 learners of French and the perception of this "accent" by ...

How Setting Goals Enhances Learners’ Self-Efficacy Beliefs in Listening Comprehension

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Liliana Ballesteros Muñoz

2014-04-01

Full Text Available This article outlines a study that explores the relationship between SMART goal setting (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-based and learning English in Colombia concerning a foreign language learners’ self-efficacy beliefs in listening. The participants were seventh and ninth grade students of two schools in Bogotá, Colombia. The results revealed that self-efficacy was highly positive when related to goal setting as students were able to set SMART goals to improve their listening comprehension and learners showed improvement in self-efficacy beliefs and felt more motivated while completing listening tasks related to songs. Furthermore this study shows that goal setting training can be incorporated successfully into the English as a foreign language classroom.

Listeners as co-narrators.

Science.gov (United States)

Bavelas, J B; Coates, L; Johnson, T

2000-12-01

A collaborative theory of narrative story-telling was tested in two experiments that examined what listeners do and their effect on the narrator. In 63 unacquainted dyads (81 women and 45 men), a narrator told his or her own close-call story. The listeners made 2 different kinds of listener responses: Generic responses included nodding and vocalizations such as "mhm." Specific responses, such as wincing or exclaiming, were tightly connected to (and served to illustrate) what the narrator was saying at the moment. In experimental conditions that distracted listeners from the narrative content, listeners made fewer responses, especially specific ones, and the narrators also told their stories significantly less well, particularly at what should have been the dramatic ending. Thus, listeners were co-narrators both through their own specific responses, which helped illustrate the story, and in their apparent effect on the narrator's performance. The results demonstrate the importance of moment-by-moment collaboration in face-to-face dialogue.

Analysis of Output Levels of an MP3 Player: Effects of Earphone Type, Music Genre, and Listening Duration.

Science.gov (United States)

Shim, Hyunyong; Lee, Seungwan; Koo, Miseung; Kim, Jinsook

2018-02-26

To prevent noise induced hearing losses caused by listening to music with personal listening devices for young adults, this study was aimed to measure output levels of an MP3 and to identify preferred listening levels (PLLs) depending on earphone types, music genres, and listening durations. Twenty-two normal hearing young adults (mean=18.82, standard deviation=0.57) participated. Each participant was asked to select his or her most PLLs when listened to Korean ballade or dance music with an earbud or an over-the-ear earphone for 30 or 60 minutes. One side of earphone was connected to the participant's better ear and the other side was connected to a sound level meter via a 2 or 6 cc-couplers. Depending on earphone types, music genres, and listening durations, loudness A-weighted equivalent (LAeq) and loudness maximum time-weighted with A-frequency sound levels in dBA were measured. Neither main nor interaction effects of the PLLs among the three factors were significant. Overall output levels of earbuds were about 10-12 dBA greater than those of over-the-ear earphones. The PLLs were 1.73 dBA greater for earbuds than over-the-ear earphones. The average PLL for ballad was higher than for dance music. The PLLs at LAeq for both music genres were the greatest at 0.5 kHz followed by 1, 0.25, 2, 4, 0.125, 8 kHz in the order. The PLLs were not different significantly when listening to Korean ballad or dance music as functions of earphone types, music genres, and listening durations. However, over-the-ear earphones seemed to be more suitable to prevent noise induce hearing loss when listening to music, showing lower PLLs, possibly due to isolation from the background noise by covering ears.

Developing students' listening metacognitive strategies using online videotext self-dictation-generation learning activity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ching Chang

2014-03-01

Full Text Available The study is based on the use of a flexible learning framework to help students improve information processes underlying strategy instruction in EFL listening. By exploiting the online videotext self-dictation-generation (video-SDG learning activity implemented on the YouTube caption manager platform, the learning cycle was emphasized to promote metacognitive listening development. Two theories were used to guide the online video-SDG learning activity: a student question-generation method and a metacognitive listening training model in a second language (L2. The study investigated how college students in the online video-SDG activity enhanced the use of listening strategies by developing metacognitive listening skills. With emphasis on the metacognitive instructional process, students could promote their listening comprehension of advertisement videos (AVs. Forty-eight students were recruited to participate in the study. Through data collected from the online learning platform, questionnaires, a focus-group interview, and pre- and post- achievement tests, the results revealed that the online video-SDG learning activity could effectively engage students in reflecting upon their perceptions of specific problems countered, listening strategy usages, and strategic knowledge exploited in the metacognitive instructional process. The importance of employing cost-effective online video-SGD learning activities is worthy of consideration in developing students’ metacognitive listening knowledge for enhancing EFL listening strategy instruction.

Listening to Red

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sinazo Mtshemla

Full Text Available Following a distinction John Mowitt draws between hearing (and phonics, and listening (and sonics, this article argues that the dominant notion of listening to sound was determined by the disciplinary framework of South African history and by the deployment of a cinematic documentary apparatus, both of which have served to disable the act of listening. The conditions of this hearing, and a deafness to a reduced or bracketed listening (Chion via Schaeffer that would enable us to think the post in post-apartheid differently, is thus at the centre of our concerns here. We stage a series of screenings of expected possible soundtracks for Simon Gush's film and installation Red, simultaneously tracking the ways that sound - and particularly music and dialogue - can be shown to hold a certain way of thinking both the political history of South Africa and the politics of South African history. We conclude by listening more closely to hiss and murmur in the soundtrack to Red and suggest this has major implications for considering ways of thinking and knowing.

Listening Skills. Instructor/Lesson Guide.

Science.gov (United States)

Decker, Carol; And Others

This instructor/lesson guide provides instructional materials for a 4-hour course in listening skills in the workplace. Stated objectives are to help students to become more effective listeners, to assist students in obtaining an understanding of how effective they are as listeners, and to assist students in identifying bad listening habits. Two…

Instructional Improvement Listening Handbook. Secondary Level.

Science.gov (United States)

Crapse, Larry

Stressing that the importance of listening carefully cannot be underestimated, this handbook describes the process of listening (including the five components--previous knowledge, listening material, physiological activity, attention, and intellectual activity), some barriers to efficient listening, and bad and good listening habits. It also…

Active listening in medical consultations: development of the Active Listening Observation Scale (ALOS-global).

OpenAIRE

Fassaert, T.; Dulmen, S. van; Schellevis, F.; Bensing, J.

2007-01-01

OBJECTIVE: Active listening is a prerequisite for a successful healthcare encounter, bearing potential therapeutic value especially in clinical situations that require no specific medical intervention. Although generally acknowledged as such, active listening has not been studied in depth. This paper describes the development of the Active Listening Observation Scale (ALOS-global), an observation instrument measuring active listening and its validation in a sample of general practice consulta...

Impact of Nursery Rhymes on Iranian EFL Learners’ Listening Comprehension Skill Improvement-A Study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Omid Pourkalhor

2017-06-01

Full Text Available The present study was an attempt to investigate the effect of nursery rhymes on the young language learners listening comprehension ability. To do so, 30 elementary learners were selected as the potential participants of the study. The learners’ perceptions about using nursery rhymes in teaching listening as well as teachers’ perceptions about teaching listening comprehension through nursery rhymes were taken into account. The listening pre- and post-tests and teachers and learners’ interviews were employed for data collection procedures. Quantitative as well as qualitative methodologies were adapted for data analysis. Findings showed that the young learners could improve their listening comprehension ability as a result of using nursery rhymes. Interview data also indicated that the learners’ perceptions about nursery rhymes were found to be positive since the rhymes provided an interesting atmosphere for the learners to improve their listening comprehension while benefiting from peer interaction and teacher’s support in the listening classroom. Teachers’ perceptions were also realistic regarding using nursery rhymes in teaching listening, especially for young learners. As to the implication side, finding can contribute to the positive application of nursery rhymes in paving the way for young learners to improve their listening comprehension ability.

Listening Comprehension in Middle-Aged Adults.

Science.gov (United States)

Sommers, Mitchell S

2015-06-01

The purpose of this summary is to examine changes in listening comprehension across the adult lifespan and to identify factors associated with individual differences in listening comprehension. In this article, the author reports on both cross-sectional and longitudinal changes in listening comprehension. Despite significant declines in both sensory and cognitive abilities, listening comprehension remains relatively unchanged in middle-aged listeners (between the ages of 40 and 60 years) compared with young listeners. These results are discussed with respect to possible compensatory factors that maintain listening comprehension despite impaired hearing and reduced cognitive capacities.

Music Listening Behavior, Health, Hearing and Otoacoustic Emission Levels

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kathleen Hutchinson Marron

2014-07-01

Full Text Available This study examined the relationship between hearing levels, otoacoustic emission levels and listening habits related to the use of personal listening devices (PLDs in adults with varying health-related fitness. Duration of PLD use was estimated and volume level was directly measured. Biomarkers of health-related fitness were co-factored into the analyses. 115 subjects ages 18–84 participated in this study. Subjects were divided into two sub-groups; PLD users and non-PLD users. Both groups completed audiological and health-related fitness tests. Due to the mismatch in the mean age of the PLD user versus the non-PLD user groups, age-adjusted statistics were performed to determine factors that contributed to hearing levels. Age was the most significant predictor of hearing levels across listening and health-related fitness variables. PLD user status did not impact hearing measures, yet PLD users who listened less than 8 hours per week with intensities of less than 80 dBA were found to have better hearing. Other variables found to be associated with hearing levels included: years listening to PLD, number of noise environments and use of ear protection. Finally, a healthy waist-to-hip ratio was a significant predictor of better hearing, while body mass index approached, but did not reach statistical significance.

THE EFFECT OF SELECTIVE LISTENING AND LISTENING METHODSES BY NOTE-TAKING ON LISTENING COMPREHENSION SKILL OF SIXTH GRADE STUDENTS

OpenAIRE

Dilek CERAN

2015-01-01

Listening which is actively used beginning from birth in social life and learning process has a changeable quality as in other skill areas. The effective role of listening, especially in the process of education, makes the development of this skill essential in a certain program and a systematic way. Applying listening methods and techniques, teaching students how to use them consciously and effectively will result in achievement of targeted goals in this process. In this research, in order t...

Detection threshold for sound distortion resulting from noise reduction in normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners.

Science.gov (United States)

Brons, Inge; Dreschler, Wouter A; Houben, Rolph

2014-09-01

Hearing-aid noise reduction should reduce background noise, but not disturb the target speech. This objective is difficult because noise reduction suffers from a trade-off between the amount of noise removed and signal distortion. It is unknown if this important trade-off differs between normal-hearing (NH) and hearing-impaired (HI) listeners. This study separated the negative effect of noise reduction (distortion) from the positive effect (reduction of noise) to allow the measurement of the detection threshold for noise-reduction (NR) distortion. Twelve NH subjects and 12 subjects with mild to moderate sensorineural hearing loss participated in this study. The detection thresholds for distortion were determined using an adaptive procedure with a three-interval, two-alternative forced-choice paradigm. Different levels of distortion were obtained by changing the maximum amount of noise reduction. Participants were also asked to indicate their preferred NR strength. The detection threshold for overall distortion was higher for HI subjects than for NH subjects, suggesting that stronger noise reduction can be applied for HI listeners without affecting the perceived sound quality. However, the preferred NR strength of HI listeners was closer to their individual detection threshold for distortion than in NH listeners. This implies that HI listeners tolerate fewer audible distortions than NH listeners.

COMMUNICATIVE LISTENING IN THE LANGUAGE LABORATORY

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nani Tiono

2001-01-01

Full Text Available Language laboratory actually is advantageous for ESL teaching-learning process. In the language lab, students can improve their language skill, especially their listening skill, since most of the activities done there deal with listening comprehension. However, ESL students often feel bored when they study at the language lab because they only do monotonous activities there. Thus, teacher should make a lively lab atmosphere through interactive listening; that is, by creating communicative listening tasks for the students. Through this communicative listening tasks, students will not only listen, but also interact with either the teacher or the other students so that they feel as if they do the real life listening. These communicative listening tasks will also help students to improve both their proficiency in language components (vocabulary and pronunciation and in language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing.

Communication skills of heads of departments: verbal, listening, and feedback skills.

Science.gov (United States)

Hamidi, Yadollah; Barati, Majid

2011-11-04

Managers' communication skills are one of the most important topics in educational sector of universities of medical sciences and may have considerable effect on faculty members and employees. This study was per-formed to determine the level of communication skills (verbal, listening, feed-back) of the heads of department of faculties and its relation with some demo-graphic variables. This cross-sectional study was conducted from June 2009 to January 2010. We enrolled all of the heads of departments (N=60) in Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, western Iran. The participants received a self-administered 24-item questionnaire in Likert format (six general items and 18 items related to communication skills). Data were analyzed with SPSS software using Chi-square and Fisher's exact tests. The average scores of verbal, listening and feedback communication were 22.5, 16.1 and 21.1, respectively. Accordingly, 78.3% of participants in verbal communication, 16.7% in listening communication and 73.3% in feedback communication had high status. There were significant differences between the average score of listening skills and age (P=0.013) as well as gender (P=0.042). In addition, there was a significant statistical difference between verbal skills and gender (P=0.021). The overall communication skills of more than half of the heads of departments were moderate. This needs designing some programs for improving department managers' communication skills.

Listening and Reading Proficiency Levels of College Students

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Tschirner, Erwin

2016-01-01

This article examines listening and reading proficiency levels of U.S. college foreign language students at major milestones throughout their undergraduate career. Data were collected from more than 3,000 participants studying seven languages at 21 universities and colleges across the United States. The results show that while listening…

Mindful Listening Instruction: Does It Make a Difference

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Anderson, William Todd

2013-01-01

This study examines the effect of mindfulness on student listening. Mindfulness is defined as "the process of noticing novel distinctions." Fifth grade students (N = 38) at a single school participated in this study, which used a posttest-only, random selection experimental design. The Independent Variable was exposure to mindful…

Older Adults' Music Listening Preferences to Support Physical Activity Following Cardiac Rehabilitation.

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Clark, Imogen N; Baker, Felicity A; Taylor, Nicholas F

2016-01-01

Music listening during exercise is thought to increase physiological arousal and enhance subjective experience, and may support physical activity participation among older adults with cardiac disease. However, little is known about how music preferences, or perceptions of music during exercise, inform clinical practice with this population. Identify predominant musical characteristics of preferred music selected by older adults, and explore participants' music listening experiences during walking-based exercise following cardiac rehabilitation. Twenty-seven participants aged 60 years and older (21 men, 6 women; mean age = 67.3 years) selected music to support walking over a 6-month intervention period, and participated in post-intervention interviews. In this two-phase study, we first identified predominant characteristics of participant-selected music using the Structural Model of Music Analysis. Second, we used inductive thematic analysis to explore participant experiences. Predominant characteristics of participant-selected music included duple meter, consistent rhythm, major key, rounded melodic shape, legato articulation, predictable harmonies, variable volume, and episodes of tension with delayed resolution. There was no predominant tempo, with music selections ranging from slow through to medium and fast. Four themes emerged from thematic analysis of participant interviews: psycho-emotional responses, physical responses, influence on exercise behavior, and negative experiences. Findings are consistent with theory and research explaining influences from music listening on physiological arousal and subjective experience during exercise. Additionally, for older adults with cardiac disease, a holistic approach to music selection considering general well-being and adjustment issues, rather than just exercise performance, may improve long-term lifestyle changes and compliance with physical activity guidelines. © the American Music Therapy Association 2016. All

Does Modality Matter? The Effects of Reading, Listening, and Dual Modality on Comprehension

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Beth A. Rogowsky

2016-09-01

Full Text Available With advancing technology, there is increasing interest in differences between listening versus reading comprehension or doing both simultaneously. Ninety-one participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups that received the same instructional material (the preface and a chapter from a non-fiction book, but each in a different input modality (digital audiobook, e-text, dual modality. After completing the material, participants took the same comprehension test in written form to establish both immediate comprehension (Time 1 and 2-week retention (Time 2. No statistically significant differences were found for any analyses pertaining to effects of the three different instructional conditions on comprehension at Time 1 or Time 2. Additional analyses showed that both males and females in each condition recalled an equal amount of information, regardless of whether they listened to an audiobook, read from an electronic tablet, or both listened and read simultaneously (dual modality.

Listening is my bugbear: Why Iranian L2 learners keep underperforming in the listening module

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Novid Armiun

2017-10-01

Full Text Available This paper shares the results of a study into the way Iranian TEF or TEFAQ candidates treat the listening comprehension as a skill as well as their awareness and exploitation of metacognitive strategies while listening to an audio document. A Persian translation of the Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire (MALQ was used in addition to another questionnaire specifically developed for this research in order to gage how important candidates think listening in L2 is compared to the other skills, how much time they spent on practicing listening, and how often they take advantage of authentic documents to improve their listening. Not only did the results show an underestimation of the listening comprehension skill by the majority of Iranian L2 learners, but they also pointed to significant differences in the way men and women exercised their ears and treated the incoming audio stream. The paper concludes that learners’ awareness of listening strategies needs to be raised through classroom instruction and frequent exploitation of authentic documents outside the classroom setting should be encouraged.

Manifestations of nationalist attitudes: Domestic music listening, participation in national celebrations, and far right voting

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Meuleman, R.; Lubbers, M.

2013-01-01

In this contribution, we aim to develop an understanding of the behavioural manifestations of nationalism. Building on social identity theory and ethnic competition theory, we examine to what extent nationalist attitudes and perceived cultural ethnic threat are related to domestic music listening,

Musical anhedonia: selective loss of emotional experience in listening to music.

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Satoh, Masayuki; Nakase, Taizen; Nagata, Ken; Tomimoto, Hidekazu

2011-10-01

Recent case studies have suggested that emotion perception and emotional experience of music have independent cognitive processing. We report a patient who showed selective impairment of emotional experience only in listening to music, that is musical anhednia. A 71-year-old right-handed man developed an infarction in the right parietal lobe. He found himself unable to experience emotion in listening to music, even to which he had listened pleasantly before the illness. In neuropsychological assessments, his intellectual, memory, and constructional abilities were normal. Speech audiometry and recognition of environmental sounds were within normal limits. Neuromusicological assessments revealed no abnormality in the perception of elementary components of music, expression and emotion perception of music. Brain MRI identified the infarct lesion in the right inferior parietal lobule. These findings suggest that emotional experience of music could be selectively impaired without any disturbance of other musical, neuropsychological abilities. The right parietal lobe might participate in emotional experience in listening to music.

The Impact of Videos Presenting Speakers’ Gestures and Facial Clues on Iranian EFL Learners’ Listening Comprehension

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Somayeh Karbalaie Safarali

2012-11-01

Full Text Available The current research sought to explore the effectiveness of using videos presenting speakers’ gestures and facial clues on Iranian EFL learners’ listening comprehension proficiency. It was carried out at Ayandeh English Institute among 60 advanced female learners with the age range of 17-30 through a quasi-experimental research design. The researcher administered a TOEFL test to determine the homogeneity of the participants regarding both their general English language proficiency level and listening comprehension ability. Participants were randomly assigned into two groups. After coming up with the conclusion that the two groups were homogeneous,  during 10 sessions of treatment, they received two different listening comprehension techniques, i.e. audio-visual group watching the video was equipped with the speaker’s gestures and facial clues, while the audio-only group could just listen to speaker’s voice and no additional clue was presented. Meanwhile, the participants were supposed to answer the questions related to each video. At the end of the treatment, both groups participated in the listening comprehension test of the Longman TOEFL test as the post-test. A t-test was used to compare the mean scores of the two groups, the result of which showed that the learners’ mean score in the audio-visual group was significantly higher than the learners’ mean score in the audio-only group. In conclusion, the result of this study suggests that foreign language pedagogy, especially for adult English learners, would benefit from applying videos presenting speakers’ gestures and facial clues.

Schizophrenia affects speech-induced functional connectivity of the superior temporal gyrus under cocktail-party listening conditions.

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Li, Juanhua; Wu, Chao; Zheng, Yingjun; Li, Ruikeng; Li, Xuanzi; She, Shenglin; Wu, Haibo; Peng, Hongjun; Ning, Yuping; Li, Liang

2017-09-17

The superior temporal gyrus (STG) is involved in speech recognition against informational masking under cocktail-party-listening conditions. Compared to healthy listeners, people with schizophrenia perform worse in speech recognition under informational speech-on-speech masking conditions. It is not clear whether the schizophrenia-related vulnerability to informational masking is associated with certain changes in FC of the STG with some critical brain regions. Using sparse-sampling fMRI design, this study investigated the differences between people with schizophrenia and healthy controls in FC of the STG for target-speech listening against informational speech-on-speech masking, when a listening condition with either perceived spatial separation (PSS, with a spatial release of informational masking) or perceived spatial co-location (PSC, without the spatial release) between target speech and masking speech was introduced. The results showed that in healthy participants, but not participants with schizophrenia, the contrast of either the PSS or PSC condition against the masker-only condition induced an enhancement of functional connectivity (FC) of the STG with the left superior parietal lobule and the right precuneus. Compared to healthy participants, participants with schizophrenia showed declined FC of the STG with the bilateral precuneus, right SPL, and right supplementary motor area. Thus, FC of the STG with the parietal areas is normally involved in speech listening against informational masking under either the PSS or PSC conditions, and declined FC of the STG in people with schizophrenia with the parietal areas may be associated with the increased vulnerability to informational masking. Copyright © 2017 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

IMPROVING LISTENING SKILL TO FAIRYTALES USING A HAND PUPPETS MEDIA

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Desy Sugianto

2017-05-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this research was to describe the increase the ability of listening to fairy tales using hand puppets media in grade III State Elementary School 16 Sungai Ringin Sintang year 2016/2017. The approach of this study was a qualitative descriptive form of classroom action research. The result showed that (1 the puppets media enhanced students’ listening skills very well, seen from students’ active and enthusiastic participation; (2 the listening skill in the first cycle gained the average of 63.78 and reached 72.42 in cycle two. This showed an increase of learning outcome from the first to the second cycle of 8.64 points. The general completeness level in the first cycle was 60.71% with satisfactory categories and in the second cycle reached 85.71% in both categories; (3 The response of students to the application of a hand puppet media was very good. This shows that the use of hand puppets media while listening to fairy tales is a way that can attract students’ attention.

Preferred listening levels of mobile phone programs when considering subway interior noise

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Jyaehyoung Yu

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Today, people listen to music loud using personal listening devices. Although a majority of studies have reported that the high volume played on these listening devices produces a latent risk of hearing problems, there is a lack of studies on "double noise exposures" such as environmental noise plus recreational noise. The present study measures the preferred listening levels of a mobile phone program with subway interior noise for 74 normal-hearing participants in five age groups (ranging from 20s to 60s. The speakers presented the subway interior noise at 73.45 dB, while each subject listened to three application programs [Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB, music, game] for 30 min using a tablet personal computer with an earphone. The participants′ earphone volume levels were analyzed using a sound level meter and a 2cc coupler. Overall, the results showed that those in their 20s listened to the three programs significantly louder with DMB set at significantly higher volume levels than for the other programs. Higher volume levels were needed for middle frequency compared to the lower and higher frequencies. We concluded that any potential risk of noise-induced hearing loss for mobile phone users should be communicated when users listen regularly, although the volume level was not high enough that the users felt uncomfortable. When considering individual listening habits on mobile phones, further study to predict total accumulated environmental noise is still needed.

Impact of Hearing Aid Technology on Outcomes in Daily Life II: Speech Understanding and Listening Effort.

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Johnson, Jani A; Xu, Jingjing; Cox, Robyn M

2016-01-01

Modern hearing aid (HA) devices include a collection of acoustic signal-processing features designed to improve listening outcomes in a variety of daily auditory environments. Manufacturers market these features at successive levels of technological sophistication. The features included in costlier premium hearing devices are designed to result in further improvements to daily listening outcomes compared with the features included in basic hearing devices. However, independent research has not substantiated such improvements. This research was designed to explore differences in speech-understanding and listening-effort outcomes for older adults using premium-feature and basic-feature HAs in their daily lives. For this participant-blinded, repeated, crossover trial 45 older adults (mean age 70.3 years) with mild-to-moderate sensorineural hearing loss wore each of four pairs of bilaterally fitted HAs for 1 month. HAs were premium- and basic-feature devices from two major brands. After each 1-month trial, participants' speech-understanding and listening-effort outcomes were evaluated in the laboratory and in daily life. Three types of speech-understanding and listening-effort data were collected: measures of laboratory performance, responses to standardized self-report questionnaires, and participant diary entries about daily communication. The only statistically significant superiority for the premium-feature HAs occurred for listening effort in the loud laboratory condition and was demonstrated for only one of the tested brands. The predominant complaint of older adults with mild-to-moderate hearing impairment is difficulty understanding speech in various settings. The combined results of all the outcome measures used in this research suggest that, when fitted using scientifically based practices, both premium- and basic-feature HAs are capable of providing considerable, but essentially equivalent, improvements to speech understanding and listening effort in daily

Teaching Effective Second Language Listening

OpenAIRE

Lieske, Carmella

2007-01-01

In Japan, listening is given focused attention in the second language (L2) classroom.This paper begins by reviewing the nature of listening as well as the processinginvolved when listening. Content validity, purposefulness and transferability,listening or memory considerations, a teaching or testing orientation, and authenticlistening are discussed. By examining these five elements of effective listeningmaterials and also factors that affect comprehension, instructors can evaluatetextbooks an...

Listening strategies instruction

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nogueroles López, Marta

2017-01-01

, who presented similar level of Spanish, needs, educational and cultural background, but did not receive such a training. The listening strategies instruction consisted in integrating the development of listening strategies into a regular course of Spanish as a foreign language. Data referring...

The effects of music listening interventions on cognition and mood post-stroke: a systematic review.

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Baylan, Satu; Swann-Price, Rhiannon; Peryer, Guy; Quinn, Terry

2016-11-01

Music listening may have beneficial psychological effects but there has been no comprehensive synthesis of the available data describing efficacy of music listening in stroke. Areas covered: We performed a systematic review examining the effects of music listening interventions on cognition and mood post-stroke. We found five published trials (n = 169 participants) and four ongoing trials. All studies demonstrated benefits of music listening on at least one measure of cognition or mood. Heterogeneity precluded meta-analysis and all included studies had potential risk of bias. Common reporting or methodological issues including lack of blinding, lack of detail on the intervention and safety reporting. Expert commentary: It is too early to recommend music listening as routine treatment post-stroke, available studies have been under-powered and at risk of bias. Accepting these caveats, music listening may have beneficial effects on both mood and cognition and we await the results of ongoing controlled studies.

Effects of listening to music, and of using a handheld and handsfree telephone on cycling behaviour

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De Waard, D.; Edlinger, K.M.; Brookhuis, K.A.

2011-01-01

The effects of listening to music on cycling behaviour were evaluated. Twenty-five participants completed a track on a bicycle while listening to music with two standard earbuds, with one earbud, and with two in-earbuds. Conditions with high tempo music and loud volume were also included in the

Audiometric Testing With Pulsed, Steady, and Warble Tones in Listeners With Tinnitus and Hearing Loss.

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Lentz, Jennifer J; Walker, Matthew A; Short, Ciara E; Skinner, Kimberly G

2017-09-18

This study evaluated the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association's recommendation that audiometric testing for patients with tinnitus should use pulsed or warble tones. Using listeners with varied audiometric configurations and tinnitus statuses, we asked whether steady, pulsed, and warble tones yielded similar audiometric thresholds, and which tone type was preferred. Audiometric thresholds (octave frequencies from 0.25-16 kHz) were measured using steady, pulsed, and warble tones in 61 listeners, who were divided into 4 groups on the basis of hearing and tinnitus status. Participants rated the appeal and difficulty of each tone type on a 1-5 scale and selected a preferred type. For all groups, thresholds were lower for warble than for pulsed and steady tones, with the largest effects above 4 kHz. Appeal ratings did not differ across tone type, but the steady tone was rated as more difficult than the warble and pulsed tones. Participants generally preferred pulsed and warble tones. Pulsed tones provide advantages over steady and warble tones for patients regardless of hearing or tinnitus status. Although listeners preferred pulsed and warble tones to steady tones, pulsed tones are not susceptible to the effects of off-frequency listening, a consideration when testing listeners with sloping audiograms.

The Effects of Lexical Pitch Accent on Infant Word Recognition in Japanese

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Mitsuhiko Ota

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Learners of lexical tone languages (e.g., Mandarin develop sensitivity to tonal contrasts and recognize pitch-matched, but not pitch-mismatched, familiar words by 11 months. Learners of non-tone languages (e.g., English also show a tendency to treat pitch patterns as lexically contrastive up to about 18 months. In this study, we examined if this early-developing capacity to lexically encode pitch variations enables infants to acquire a pitch accent system, in which pitch-based lexical contrasts are obscured by the interaction of lexical and non-lexical (i.e., intonational features. Eighteen 17-month-olds learning Tokyo Japanese were tested on their recognition of familiar words with the expected pitch or the lexically opposite pitch pattern. In early trials, infants were faster in shifting their eyegaze from the distractor object to the target object than in shifting from the target to distractor in the pitch-matched condition. In later trials, however, infants showed faster distractor-to-target than target-to-distractor shifts in both the pitch-matched and pitch-mismatched conditions. We interpret these results to mean that, in a pitch-accent system, the ability to use pitch variations to recognize words is still in a nascent state at 17 months.

Listening as a Perceived and Interactive Activity: Understanding the Impact of Verbal Listening Responses

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Hall, Bradford

2012-01-01

This sequenced activity encourages active engagement with the idea that listening and speaking are not inherently separate or one-way activities. Listening involves both verbal, and nonverbal responses and perceptions of effective listening are tied to these patterns of response. These patterns of response impact both the immediate communication…

Listening Diary in the Digital Age: Students' Material Selection, Listening Problems, and Perceived Usefulness

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Chen, Cheryl Wei-yu

2016-01-01

The current study reports on a group of Taiwanese college students' first-person diary accounts of their private, transactional listening activities outside the classroom. Issues related to students' material selection, listening problems, and perceived usefulness of keeping a listening diary were explored. It was found that most students chose…

Elucidating the relationship between work attention performance and emotions arising from listening to music.

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Shih, Yi-Nuo; Chien, Wei-Hsien; Chiang, Han-Sun

2016-10-17

In addition to demonstrating that human emotions improve work attention performance, numerous studies have also established that music alters human emotions. Given the pervasiveness of background music in the workplace, exactly how work attention, emotions and music listening are related is of priority concern in human resource management. This preliminary study investigates the relationship between work attention performance and emotions arising from listening to music. Thirty one males and 34 females, ranging from 20-24 years old, participated in this study following written informed consent. A randomized controlled trial (RCT) was performed in this study, which consisted of six steps and the use of the standard attention test and emotion questionnaire. Background music with lyrics adversely impacts attention performance more than that without lyrics. Analysis results also indicate that listeners self-reported feeling "loved" while music played that implied a higher score on their work-attention performance. Moreover, a greater ability of music to make listeners feel sad implied a lower score on their work-attention performance. Results of this preliminary study demonstrate that background music in the workplace should focus mainly on creating an environment in which listeners feel loved or taken care and avoiding music that causes individuals to feel stressed or sad. We recommend that future research increase the number of research participants to enhance the applicability and replicability of these findings.

A hypothesis on improving foreign accents by optimizing variability in vocal learning brain circuits.

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Simmonds, Anna J

2015-01-01

Rapid vocal motor learning is observed when acquiring a language in early childhood, or learning to speak another language later in life. Accurate pronunciation is one of the hardest things for late learners to master and they are almost always left with a non-native accent. Here, I propose a novel hypothesis that this accent could be improved by optimizing variability in vocal learning brain circuits during learning. Much of the neurobiology of human vocal motor learning has been inferred from studies on songbirds. Jarvis (2004) proposed the hypothesis that as in songbirds there are two pathways in humans: one for learning speech (the striatal vocal learning pathway), and one for production of previously learnt speech (the motor pathway). Learning new motor sequences necessary for accurate non-native pronunciation is challenging and I argue that in late learners of a foreign language the vocal learning pathway becomes inactive prematurely. The motor pathway is engaged once again and learners maintain their original native motor patterns for producing speech, resulting in speaking with a foreign accent. Further, I argue that variability in neural activity within vocal motor circuitry generates vocal variability that supports accurate non-native pronunciation. Recent theoretical and experimental work on motor learning suggests that variability in the motor movement is necessary for the development of expertise. I propose that there is little trial-by-trial variability when using the motor pathway. When using the vocal learning pathway variability gradually increases, reflecting an exploratory phase in which learners try out different ways of pronouncing words, before decreasing and stabilizing once the "best" performance has been identified. The hypothesis proposed here could be tested using behavioral interventions that optimize variability and engage the vocal learning pathway for longer, with the prediction that this would allow learners to develop new motor

The Mediating Effect of Listening Metacognitive Awareness between Test-Taking Motivation and Listening Test Score: An Expectancy-Value Theory Approach.

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Xu, Jian

2017-01-01

The present study investigated test-taking motivation in L2 listening testing context by applying Expectancy-Value Theory as the framework. Specifically, this study was intended to examine the complex relationships among expectancy, importance, interest, listening anxiety, listening metacognitive awareness, and listening test score using data from a large-scale and high-stakes language test among Chinese first-year undergraduates. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the mediating effect of listening metacognitive awareness on the relationship between expectancy, importance, interest, listening anxiety, and listening test score. According to the results, test takers' listening scores can be predicted by expectancy, interest, and listening anxiety significantly. The relationship between expectancy, interest, listening anxiety, and listening test score was mediated by listening metacognitive awareness. The findings have implications for test takers to improve their test taking motivation and listening metacognitive awareness, as well as for L2 teachers to intervene in L2 listening classrooms.

The Mediating Effect of Listening Metacognitive Awareness between Test-Taking Motivation and Listening Test Score: An Expectancy-Value Theory Approach

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Jian Xu

2017-12-01

Full Text Available The present study investigated test-taking motivation in L2 listening testing context by applying Expectancy-Value Theory as the framework. Specifically, this study was intended to examine the complex relationships among expectancy, importance, interest, listening anxiety, listening metacognitive awareness, and listening test score using data from a large-scale and high-stakes language test among Chinese first-year undergraduates. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the mediating effect of listening metacognitive awareness on the relationship between expectancy, importance, interest, listening anxiety, and listening test score. According to the results, test takers’ listening scores can be predicted by expectancy, interest, and listening anxiety significantly. The relationship between expectancy, interest, listening anxiety, and listening test score was mediated by listening metacognitive awareness. The findings have implications for test takers to improve their test taking motivation and listening metacognitive awareness, as well as for L2 teachers to intervene in L2 listening classrooms.

The Effect of Different Modes of English Captioning on EFL learners’ General Listening Comprehension: Full text Vs. Keyword Captions

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Sorayya Behroozizad

2015-08-01

Full Text Available This study investigated the effect of different modes of English captioning on EFL learners’ general listening comprehension. To this end, forty five intermediate-level learners were selected based on their scores on a standardized English proficiency test (PET to carry out the study. Then, the selected participants were randomly assigned into two experimental groups (full-captions and keyword-captions and one control group (no-captions. Research instrumentation included a pre-test and a post-test following an experimental design. Participants took a pre-test and a post-test containing 50 multiple-choice questions (25question for pre-test and 25 question for post-test selected from a standard listening test PET, and also 15 treatment sessions. The findings showed significant differences among full-captions, keyword-captions, and no-captions in terms of their effect on learners’ general listening comprehension. This study provided some pedagogical implications for teaching listening through using different modes of captions. Keywords: Caption, full caption, keyword caption, listening comprehension

On-Line Smiles: Does Gender Make a Difference in the Use of Graphic Accents?

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Witmer, Diane; Katzman, Sandra

1997-01-01

Examines whether it is possible to determine the gender of a message sender from cues in the message. Finds partial support for the hypothesis that women use more graphic accents than men do in their computer-mediated communication. Finds also that women tend to challenge and "flame" more than men. Discusses implications and poses…

"Listening Is an Act of Love": Learning Listening through StoryCorps

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Simmons, Nathaniel; Tenzek, Kelly E.

2016-01-01

The importance of listening continues to be reinforced within professional, personal, and popular cultural contexts. Despite the attention employers, teachers, scholars, and various popular outlets attend to listening, engaging students in activities that practice such skills remain challenging. Understanding that interpersonal competence requires…

An Analysis of the Academic Achievement of the Students Who Listen to Music While Studying

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Umzdas, Serpil

2015-01-01

This study's aim is to examine the correlation between the study type, the type and quality of the music students listen to while studying as well as their educational level. The participants of the study are 481 students on a scale of different ages listening to music while studying. The data of the study were collected through a survey…

The Effect of Activating Metacognitive Strategies on the Listening Performance and Metacognitive Awareness of EFL Students

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Rahimirad, Maryam; Shams, Mohammad Reza

2014-01-01

This study investigates the effect of activating metacognitive strategies on the listening performance of English as a foreign language (EFL) university students and explores the impact of such strategies on their metacognitive awareness of the listening task. The participants were N = 50 students of English literature at the state university of…

Identifying Information Focuses in Listening Comprehension

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Zhang, Hong-yan

2011-01-01

The study explains the process of learners' listening comprehension within Halliday's information theory in functional grammar, including the skills of identifying focuses while listening in college English teaching. Identifying information focuses in listening is proved to improve the students' communicative listening ability by the means of a…

Active listening in medical consultations: development of the Active Listening Observation Scale (ALOS-global).

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Fassaert, Thijs; van Dulmen, Sandra; Schellevis, François; Bensing, Jozien

2007-11-01

Active listening is a prerequisite for a successful healthcare encounter, bearing potential therapeutic value especially in clinical situations that require no specific medical intervention. Although generally acknowledged as such, active listening has not been studied in depth. This paper describes the development of the Active Listening Observation Scale (ALOS-global), an observation instrument measuring active listening and its validation in a sample of general practice consultations for minor ailments. Five hundred and twenty-four videotaped general practice consultations involving minor ailments were observed with the ALOS-global. Hypotheses were tested to determine validity, incorporating patients' perception of GPs' affective performance, GPs' verbal attention, patients' self-reported anxiety level and gender differences. The final 7-item ALOS-global had acceptable inter- and intra-observer agreement. Factor analysis revealed one homogeneous dimension. The scalescore was positively related to verbal attention measured by RIAS, to patients' perception of GPs' performance and to their pre-visit anxiety level. Female GPs received higher active listening scores. The results of this study are promising concerning the psychometric properties of the ALOS-global. More research is needed to confirm these preliminary findings. After establishing how active listening differentiates between health professionals, the ALOS-global may become a valuable tool in feedback and training aimed at increasing listening skills.

Strategy-based listening and pragmatic comprehension

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Corsetti, Cristiane Ruzicki

2014-01-01

Full Text Available This article addresses the role of strategy-based listening as an alternative methodological approach to develop pragmatic comprehension in L2 contexts. Pragmatic comprehension refers to the understanding of speech acts and conversational implicatures. Listening comprehension comprises both bottom-up and top-down processes. Strategy-based listening encompasses the activation of pragmatic knowledge through pre-listening activities and the development of specific listening micro-skills. An empirical project which included a classroom project carried out with a group of eight learners preparing for the IELTS examination in 2009 corroborated the following assumptions: in order to achieve listening proficiency, learners need practice in making inferences as semantic and pragmatic inferences are embedded in verbal communication; semantic and pragmatic aspects affecting the meaning of utterances can be highlighted via comprehension activities focusing on specific listening subskills. The results of the classroom project suggested that strategy-based listening is potentially capable of directly enhancing pragmatic comprehension but were inconclusive with regards to pragmatic production

Foreign Accent Syndrome Secondary to Medication Withdrawal: A Case Report

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Michael J. Schuh

2017-08-01

Full Text Available Objective: The purpose of this case report is to demonstrate a possible alternative etiology related to dopamine may exist for foreign accent syndrome (FAS. Methods: A 79-year-old, 205 pound, Caucasian woman originally presented to the department of Neurology for treatment and subsequently to the pharmacist pharmacotherapy service for evaluation of bilateral upper extremity tremor of high amplitude but was found to also exhibit FAS. Discussion: This case report contributes to the limited literature regarding foreign accent syndrome and adds to the few case reports of psychogenic origin, as opposed to the majority, which are of neurogenic origin. This also represents the first case that seems related to withdrawal of medication rather than psychotic exacerbation and ranks a six on the Naranjo algorithm. Conclusion: FAS is a rare disorder and little is understood about it. This case presentation also suggests that chronic use of high-dose dopamine and/or anticholinergic agents may alter pathways in the brain, which in this case, may have potentially contributed to the development of FAS. There remain many unanswered questions regarding FAS, but hopefully more clarity may be found as more cases are discovered and published. Conflict of Interest I declare no conflicts of interest or financial interests that the authors or members of their immediate families have in any product or service discussed in the manuscript, including grants (pending or received, employment, gifts, stock holdings or options, honoraria, consultancies, expert testimony, patents and royalties.   Type: Case Study

Effect of Explicit Evaluation on Neural Connectivity Related to Listening to Unfamiliar Music

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Liu, Chao; Brattico, Elvira; Abu-jamous, Basel; Pereira, Carlos S.; Jacobsen, Thomas; Nandi, Asoke K.

2017-01-01

People can experience different emotions when listening to music. A growing number of studies have investigated the brain structures and neural connectivities associated with perceived emotions. However, very little is known about the effect of an explicit act of judgment on the neural processing of emotionally-valenced music. In this study, we adopted the novel consensus clustering paradigm, called binarisation of consensus partition matrices (Bi-CoPaM), to study whether and how the conscious aesthetic evaluation of the music would modulate brain connectivity networks related to emotion and reward processing. Participants listened to music under three conditions – one involving a non-evaluative judgment, one involving an explicit evaluative aesthetic judgment, and one involving no judgment at all (passive listening only). During non-evaluative attentive listening we obtained auditory-limbic connectivity whereas when participants were asked to decide explicitly whether they liked or disliked the music excerpt, only two clusters of intercommunicating brain regions were found: one including areas related to auditory processing and action observation, and the other comprising higher-order structures involved with visual processing. Results indicate that explicit evaluative judgment has an impact on the neural auditory-limbic connectivity during affective processing of music. PMID:29311874

Improving Speaking by Listening Cultivating English Thinking and Expression--Probe into the Teaching of "Business English Listening"

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Sun, Wencheng

2009-01-01

The comprehensive listening curriculum occupies an important position in elementary teaching stage for English major. How could we arrange the listening class better? Considering the characteristics of comprehensive listening curriculum for English major, teachers can help students improve speaking by listening, cultivating their thinking and…

Expanding Music Listening Experience through Drawing

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Han, Yo-Jung

2016-01-01

Drawing while listening to music provides an opportunity for students to imagine and associate, leading to holistic listening experience. The personal qualitative listening experience triggered by music can be revealed in their drawings. In the process of representing of the listening experience through drawing, students can also increase their…

THE TECHNIQUES IN TEACHING LISTENING SKILL

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Hidayah Nor

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Listening is very important skill in language because by listening students can produce language like speaking and writing by vocabulary that they get from listening. The English teacher of MAN 3 Banjarmasin used some techniques in teaching listening using the facilities in language laboratory such as tape cassette, television, and VCD/DVD. This research described the techniques in teaching listening skill of the Islamic high school students. The subjects of this study were an English teacher and 48 students of the tenth grade at MAN 3 Banjarmasin in Academic Year 2009/2010. To collect the data, it was used some techniques such as observation, interview, and documentary. Then all data were analyzed using descriptive method qualitatively and quantitatively, by concluding inductively. The result indicates that the techniques in teaching listening applied by the English teacher of the tenth grade students at MAN 3 Banjarmasin in Academic Year 2009/2010 are: Information Transfer, Paraphrasing and Translating, Answering Questions, Summarizing, Filling in Blanks, and Answering to Show Comprehension of Messages. The students’ ability of listening comprehension using six techniques is categorized in very high, high, and average levels. Keywords: listening techniques, teaching listening skill

Test Method Facet and the Construct Validity of Listening Comprehension Tests

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Roya Khoii

2010-05-01

Full Text Available The assessment of listening abilities is one of the least understood, least developed and, yet, one of the most important areas of language testing and assessment. It is particularly important because of its potential wash-back effects on classroom practices. Given the fact that listening tests play a great role in assessing the language proficiency of students, they are expected to enjoy a high level of construct validity. The present study was dedicated to investigating the construct validity of three different test formats, namely, multiple-choice, gap filling on summary (also called listening summary cloze, and fill-in-the-blank, used to evaluate the listening comprehension of EFL learners. In order to achieve the purpose of the study, three passages with relatively similar readability levels were used for the construction of 9 listening tests, that is, each appeared in three formats. Following a counter-balanced design, the tests were administered to 91homogeneous EFL learners divided into three groups. The statistical analysis of the results revealed that the multiple-choice test enjoyed the highest level of construct validity. Moreover, a repeated measure one-way ANOVA demonstrated that the fill-in-the-blank task was the most difficult with the MC test as the easiest for the participants.

Effects of Varying Reverberation on Music Perception for Young Normal-Hearing and Old Hearing-Impaired Listeners.

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Reinhart, Paul N; Souza, Pamela E

2018-01-01

Reverberation enhances music perception and is one of the most important acoustic factors in auditorium design. However, previous research on reverberant music perception has focused on young normal-hearing (YNH) listeners. Old hearing-impaired (OHI) listeners have degraded spatial auditory processing; therefore, they may perceive reverberant music differently. Two experiments were conducted examining the effects of varying reverberation on music perception for YNH and OHI listeners. Experiment 1 examined whether YNH listeners and OHI listeners prefer different amounts of reverberation for classical music listening. Symphonic excerpts were processed at a range of reverberation times using a point-source simulation. Listeners performed a paired-comparisons task in which they heard two excerpts with different reverberation times, and they indicated which they preferred. The YNH group preferred a reverberation time of 2.5 s; however, the OHI group did not demonstrate any significant preference. Experiment 2 examined whether OHI listeners are less sensitive to (e, less able to discriminate) differences in reverberation time than YNH listeners. YNH and OHI participants listened to pairs of music excerpts and indicated whether they perceived the same or different amount of reverberation. Results indicated that the ability of both groups to detect differences in reverberation time improved with increasing reverberation time difference. However, discrimination was poorer for the OHI group than for the YNH group. This suggests that OHI listeners are less sensitive to differences in reverberation when listening to music than YNH listeners, which might explain the lack of group reverberation time preferences of the OHI group.

The Power of the Listening Ear

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Campbell, Robyn

2011-01-01

Communicating effectively is a skill that must be taught and practiced--and the act of listening is a large part of this skill. According to the "International Journal of Listening," listening skills are imperative to reading comprehension and are valuable enough for "38 out of the 51 government entities to include listening skills as part of…

High second-language proficiency protects against the effects of reverberation on listening comprehension.

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Sörqvist, Patrik; Hurtig, Anders; Ljung, Robert; Rönnberg, Jerker

2014-04-01

The purpose of this experiment was to investigate whether classroom reverberation influences second-language (L2) listening comprehension. Moreover, we investigated whether individual differences in baseline L2 proficiency and in working memory capacity (WMC) modulate the effect of reverberation time on L2 listening comprehension. The results showed that L2 listening comprehension decreased as reverberation time increased. Participants with higher baseline L2 proficiency were less susceptible to this effect. WMC was also related to the effect of reverberation (although just barely significant), but the effect of WMC was eliminated when baseline L2 proficiency was statistically controlled. Taken together, the results suggest that top-down cognitive capabilities support listening in adverse conditions. Potential implications for the Swedish national tests in English are discussed. © 2014 The Authors. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology published by Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Newnes short wave listening handbook

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Pritchard, Joe

2013-01-01

Newnes Short Wave Listening Handbook is a guide for starting up in short wave listening (SWL). The book is comprised of 15 chapters that discuss the basics and fundamental concepts of short wave radio listening. The coverage of the text includes electrical principles; types of signals that can be heard in the radio spectrum; and using computers in SWL. The book also covers SWL equipment, such as receivers, converters, and circuits. The text will be of great use to individuals who want to get into short wave listening.

Game-based Training of Listening Skills: The Effects of Degraded Communications

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Clint Bowers

2014-10-01

Full Text Available Many important tasks depend upon the ability of personnel to be able to extract information from verbal communication in suboptimal conditions. However, there is little guidance in how best to train people to improve this skill, specifically regarding the most effective combination of human or synthesized speech with or without text captions.  In this study, we examined two competing theories, the cognitive theory of multimedia learning versus resilient listening, to determine best practices for designing a game to train active listening skills in complex environments. One-hundred and nineteen U.S. Navy recruits (53% male, average age of 21.5 years participated in this study.  The results indicated that games with degraded auditory conditions did not improve listening abilities in a transfer condition.  Games using recorded human voices resulted in the best performance.

EFFECTS OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING METHOD ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF LISTENING COMPREHENSION AND LISTENING SKILLS

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Abdülkadir

2017-04-01

Full Text Available In this study, the effect of the learning together technique, which is one of the cooperative learning methods, on the development of the listening comprehension and listening skills of the secondary school eighth grade students was investigated. Regarding the purpose of the research, experimental and control groups consisting of 75 students from, Yakutiye district Şair Nef'i Secondary School and Palandöken District, Alparslan Secondary School of Erzurum province were selected. Socio-economic statuses and success rates were taken into consideration when selecting the experimental and control groups. 'Listening-Comprehension Achievement Test' was applied to measure the listening skills of the experimental and control groups. In terms of pre-test scores, it was determined that the listening skills of the experiment and control group were similar. The selected experimental groups were taught by the learning together technique of cooperative learning method for seven weeks and the control group was taught in the traditional way. As a result of the research, the 'Listening-Comprehension Achievement Test', which was applied as the pre-test to the experimental and control groups, was applied again as the final test. When the findings obtained from the research were examined, it was determined that the students in the experimental group were more successful than the students in the control group in terms of post - test achievement scores. When the results of the study are examined, it can be said that the learning together technique, which is one of the cooperative learning methods, is more effective than the traditional learning method in improving the listening comprehension and the listening skills of the eighth grade students in Turkish class.

Communication: Listening and Responding. Affective 4.0.

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Borgers, Sherry B., Comp.; Ward, G. Robert, Comp.

This module is designed to provide practice in listening effectively and in responding to messages sent by another. The module is divided into two sets of activities, the first is the formation of a triad enabling the student to investigate the following: do you listen, listening and the unrelated response, incomplete listening, listening for…

Listening Effort in Younger and Older Adults: A Comparison of Auditory-Only and Auditory-Visual Presentations.

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Sommers, Mitchell S; Phelps, Damian

2016-01-01

One goal of the present study was to establish whether providing younger and older adults with visual speech information (both seeing and hearing a talker compared with listening alone) would reduce listening effort for understanding speech in noise. In addition, we used an individual differences approach to assess whether changes in listening effort were related to changes in visual enhancement-the improvement in speech understanding in going from an auditory-only (A-only) to an auditory-visual condition (AV) condition. To compare word recognition in A-only and AV modalities, younger and older adults identified words in both A-only and AV conditions in the presence of six-talker babble. Listening effort was assessed using a modified version of a serial recall task. Participants heard (A-only) or saw and heard (AV) a talker producing individual words without background noise. List presentation was stopped randomly and participants were then asked to repeat the last three words that were presented. Listening effort was assessed using recall performance in the two- and three-back positions. Younger, but not older, adults exhibited reduced listening effort as indexed by greater recall in the two- and three-back positions for the AV compared with the A-only presentations. For younger, but not older adults, changes in performance from the A-only to the AV condition were moderately correlated with visual enhancement. Results are discussed within a limited-resource model of both A-only and AV speech perception.

The Impact of Cooperative Listening Materials Adaptation on Listening Comprehension Performance of Iranian EFL Learners

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Ghassemi, Mojtaba

2013-01-01

Listening comprehension has gained more prominence in EFL/ESL classes. Due to this prominence, scholars have tried to shed light on different ways of improving learners' listening comprehension. One of these ways is using listening strategies. There is still a controversy over the effective role of these strategies in improving listening…

Self-Efficacy and Academic Listening

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Graham, Suzanne

2011-01-01

This paper takes as its starting point the difficulties inherent in listening in a second language. It argues that self-efficacy, broadly defined as the belief in one's ability to carry out specific tasks successfully, is crucial to the development of effective listening skills, and that listening strategy instruction has the potential to boost…

The beneficial effect of a speaker's gestures on the listener's memory for action phrases: The pivotal role of the listener's premotor cortex.

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Ianì, Francesco; Burin, Dalila; Salatino, Adriana; Pia, Lorenzo; Ricci, Raffaella; Bucciarelli, Monica

2018-04-10

Memory for action phrases improves in the listeners when the speaker accompanies them with gestures compared to when the speaker stays still. Since behavioral studies revealed a pivotal role of the listeners' motor system, we aimed to disentangle the role of primary motor and premotor cortices. Participants had to recall phrases uttered by a speaker in two conditions: in the gesture condition, the speaker performed gestures congruent with the action; in the no-gesture condition, the speaker stayed still. In Experiment 1, half of the participants underwent inhibitory rTMS over the hand/arm region of the left premotor cortex (PMC) and the other half over the hand/arm region of the left primary motor cortex (M1). The enactment effect disappeared only following rTMS over PMC. In Experiment 2, we detected the usual enactment effect after rTMS over vertex, thereby excluding possible nonspecific rTMS effects. These findings suggest that the information encoded in the premotor cortex is a crucial part of the memory trace. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Effects of Audiobooks on EFL Students' Listening Comprehension

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Kartal, Galip; Simsek, Harun

2017-01-01

This study investigates the effects of audiobooks on listening comprehension skills of EFL Students, and their attitudes towards using audiobooks in a foreign language classroom. The participants are 66 first-year students of a state university in Turkey. The research follows a pre- post-test control group research design using quantitative and…

Music Listening--Romantic Period (1815-1914), Music: 5635.794.

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Pearl, Jesse; Carter, Raymond

This secondary level Quinmester course is designed to teach the principal types of vocal, instrumental, and operatic compositions of the Romantic period through listening to the styles of different composers and acquiring recognition of their works. The course is intended for students who have participated in fine or performing arts and for pupils…

The Effect of Note Taking vs. Summarizing Strategy on Iranian EFL Learners’ Listening Comprehension

OpenAIRE

Mehri Khavazi; Mandana Yousefi; Naeemeh Kharaghani

2018-01-01

This study, specifically, investigated the effect of note taking and summarizing strategies on Iranian EFL learners’ listening comprehension. The study aimed at investigating the effects of note taking and summarizing on listening comprehension of Iranian EFL learners. The participants of the study included 75 female language learners in Bojnord who were homogenized in terms of language proficiency. They were divided into two experimental and onecontrol groups. ANCOVA test was used to analyze...

Experiences of music listening among rugby players at North-West University

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Tamaryn L. Aslett

2017-04-01

Full Text Available This article documents a study that investigated the reasons why a group of student rugby players habitually listen to music as part of their pre-match routine. The investigation followed a hermeneutic phenomenological approach that allowed the players to verbalise their personal music listening experiences. The investigation links the music listening practices of the players with the concept of musical experience as an innate human capacity directed towards general well-being. For the players, well-being is a basic condition of happiness and optimism. Achieving and maintaining this condition draws on the emotive qualities of musical sound patterns, as well as the powerful, socially situated meanings of song lyrics. Consequent states of mind conceptualise a rewarding existence by integrating experiences in sport as well as in music. Directed towards rugby practice, the study found that music listening is an informal, individual activity that involves the use of earphones. The sense of personal isolation this induces is a prerequisite for generating focus as well as controlled energy, a state of mind regarded as essential for effective participation in rugby. The pervasive use yet informal application of this strategy by rugby players points to an officially undervalued psychological resource. This finding has implications for fuller exploitation and incorporation of music listening into rugby training programmes.

Second and foreign language listening: unraveling the construct.

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Tafaghodtari, Marzieh H; Vandergrift, Larry

2008-08-01

Identifying the variables which contribute to second and foreign language (L2) listening ability can provide a better understanding of the listening construct. This study explored the degree to which first language (L1) listening ability, L2 proficiency, motivation and metacognition contribute to L2 listening comprehension. 115 Persian-speaking English as a Foreign Language (EFL) university students completed a motivation questionnaire, the Language Learning Motivation Orientation Scale, a listening questionnaire, the Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire, and an English-language proficiency measure, as well as listening tests in English and Persian. Scores from all measures were subjected to descriptive, inferential, and correlational analyses. The results support the hypothesis that variability in L2 listening cannot be explained by either L2 proficiency or L1 listening ability; rather, a cluster of variables including L2 proficiency, L1 listening ability, metacognitive knowledge and motivation orientations can better explain variability in L2 listening ability.

Dichotic Listening Can Improve Perceived Clarity of Music in Cochlear Implant Users.

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Vannson, Nicolas; Innes-Brown, Hamish; Marozeau, Jeremy

2015-08-26

Musical enjoyment for cochlear implant (CI) recipients is often reported to be unsatisfactory. Our goal was to determine whether the musical experience of postlingually deafened adult CI recipients could be enriched by presenting the bass and treble clef parts of short polyphonic piano pieces separately to each ear (dichotic). Dichotic presentation should artificially enhance the lateralization cues of each part and help the listeners to better segregate them and thus provide greater clarity. We also hypothesized that perception of the intended emotion of the pieces and their overall enjoyment would be enhanced in the dichotic mode compared with the monophonic (both parts in the same ear) and the diotic mode (both parts in both ears). Twenty-eight piano pieces specifically composed to induce sad or happy emotions were selected. The tempo of the pieces, which ranged from lento to presto covaried with the intended emotion (from sad to happy). Thirty participants (11 normal-hearing listeners, 11 bimodal CI and hearing-aid users, and 8 bilaterally implanted CI users) participated in this study. Participants were asked to rate the perceived clarity, the intended emotion, and their preference of each piece in different listening modes. Results indicated that dichotic presentation produced small significant improvements in subjective ratings based on perceived clarity and preference. We also found that preference and clarity ratings were significantly higher for pieces with fast tempi compared with slow tempi. However, no significant differences between diotic and dichotic presentation were found for the participants' preference ratings, or their judgments of intended emotion. © The Author(s) 2015.

The Effect of Listening to English Songs on Iranian EFL Pre-intermediate Learners’ Listening Comprehension

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Mahin Rezaei

2015-05-01

Full Text Available The aim of this study was to find out whether listening to English songs can improve pre-intermediate EFL learners’ listening comprehension. To this end, a non-randomized pretest-posttest control group design as one of the quasi-experimental research designs was employed. The sample of the study consisted of 40 male and female English learners from two classes in an Institute in Marand, Iran. The two classes were randomly assigned into the experimental and control groups.  Then, a PET test was used to check the homogeneity of both groups. The listening section of PET was also considered as the pretest of the study. Then, fifteen English songs were used in the experimental group during the treatment period. Each session, within 45 minutes, one song was played for and practiced with the learners. Meanwhile, the control group had their usual teacher -fronted class without listening to songs. At the end, both groups were post tested on their listening comprehension using the listening section of another version of PET. The collected data were analyzed using Independent-Samples and Paired-Samples t-tests. The results revealed a statistically significant improvement in the performance of the experimental group. It is implied that songs are not only an entertaining tool but they can also be used as a pedagogic material in improving learners’ listening comprehension.

Learning to Listen: Teaching an Active Listening Strategy to Preservice Education Professionals

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McNaughton, David; Hamlin, Dawn; McCarthy, John; Head-Reeves, Darlene; Schreiner, Mary

2008-01-01

The importance of parent-teacher communication has been widely recognized; however, there is only limited research on teaching effective listening skills to education professionals. In this study, a pretest-posttest control group design was used to examine the effect of instruction on the active listening skills of preservice education…

THE CORRELATION BETWEEN STUDENTS’ FREQUENCY OF LISTENING TO ENGLISH SONGS AND THEIR LISTENING ACHIEVEMENT

OpenAIRE

Elvira Rosyida M. R.

2016-01-01

This study is aimed at investigating whether there is a significant correlation between students’ frequency of listening to English songs and their listening achievement This study was conducted at the first year students of State Senior High School 9 Bandarlampung, Lampung. A descriptive quantitative was employed in this study which used ex-post facto design and the data were taken from questionnaire, semi-structured interview, and listening test. The data were analyzed by using Statistical ...

Understanding native Russian listeners' errors on an English word recognition test: model-based analysis of phoneme confusion.

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Shi, Lu-Feng; Morozova, Natalia

2012-08-01

Word recognition is a basic component in a comprehensive hearing evaluation, but data are lacking for listeners speaking two languages. This study obtained such data for Russian natives in the US and analysed the data using the perceptual assimilation model (PAM) and speech learning model (SLM). Listeners were randomly presented 200 NU-6 words in quiet. Listeners responded verbally and in writing. Performance was scored on words and phonemes (word-initial consonants, vowels, and word-final consonants). Seven normal-hearing, adult monolingual English natives (NM), 16 English-dominant (ED), and 15 Russian-dominant (RD) Russian natives participated. ED and RD listeners differed significantly in their language background. Consistent with the SLM, NM outperformed ED listeners and ED outperformed RD listeners, whether responses were scored on words or phonemes. NM and ED listeners shared similar phoneme error patterns, whereas RD listeners' errors had unique patterns that could be largely understood via the PAM. RD listeners had particular difficulty differentiating vowel contrasts /i-I/, /æ-ε/, and /ɑ-Λ/, word-initial consonant contrasts /p-h/ and /b-f/, and word-final contrasts /f-v/. Both first-language phonology and second-language learning history affect word and phoneme recognition. Current findings may help clinicians differentiate word recognition errors due to language background from hearing pathologies.

The Impact of Morphological Awareness on Iranian Pre-University Students’ Listening Transcription

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mohammad nabi karimi

2009-10-01

Full Text Available Morphological Awareness (henceforth: MA, defined as the ability to understand the morphemic structure of the words, has been reported to affect various aspects of second language performance including reading comprehension ability, spelling performance, etc. Yet, the concept has been far less treated with reference to l2 listening transcription. Thus, against this background, this study aims to investigate the link between MA and listening transcription ability of Iranian pre-university students. To this aim, 40 pre-university students participated in the study, and were assigned to two control and experimental groups. Both groups were first given three short listening passages to transcribe as the pre-tests. The results of the independent-samples t-test revealed no significant difference between the two groups. The experimental group, then, received five one-hour sessions briefing them on the morphological realization of English words. The two groups were then given three short listening passages to transcribe as their post-tests. The results of the independent-samples t-tests attested to the significant difference between the two groups, thus, supporting the relationship between MA and listening transcription ability. The study concludes with some suggestions as to the incorporation of MA into L2 learning programs.

Acceptance noise level: effects of the speech signal, babble, and listener language.

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Shi, Lu-Feng; Azcona, Gabrielly; Buten, Lupe

2015-04-01

The acceptable noise level (ANL) measure has gained much research/clinical interest in recent years. The present study examined how the characteristics of the speech signal and the babble used in the measure may affect the ANL in listeners with different native languages. Fifteen English monolingual, 16 Russian-English bilingual, and 24 Spanish-English bilingual listeners participated. The ANL was obtained in eight conditions varying in the language of the signal (English and Spanish), language of the babble (English and Spanish), and number of talkers in the babble (4 and 12). Test conditions were randomized across listeners. The ANL for each condition was based on a minimum of two trials. Russian-English bilinguals yielded higher ANLs than other listeners; the intergroup difference of 4-5 dB was statistically and clinically significant. Spanish signals yielded significantly higher ANLs than English signals, but this difference of 0.5 dB was clinically negligible. The language and composition of the babble had a significant effect on Russian-English bilinguals, who yielded higher ANLs with the Spanish than English 12-talker babble. The above findings do not fully support the notion that the ANL is language- and population-independent. Clinicians should be aware of possible effects on ANL measures due to listeners' linguistic/cultural background.

ASSESSING LISTENING IN THE LANGUAGE CLASSROOM

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Kristanti Ayuanita

2013-05-01

Full Text Available The importance of listening in language learning can hardly be overestimated. In classrooms, students always do more listening than speaking. Listening competence is universally “larger” than other competence. Listening is not a oneway street. It is not merely the process of a unidirectional receiving of audible symbols one facet – the first step – 0f listening comprehension is the psychomotor process of receiving sound waves through the ear and transmitting nerve impulses to the brain. Every classroom lesson involves some form of assessment, whether it is in the form of informal, unplanned, and intuitive teacher processing and feedback, or in formal, prepared, scored tests.

The Effect of Listening to Music on Postoperative Pain in Adult Orthopedic Patients.

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Schneider, Melissa A

2018-03-01

Pain is a common occurrence after orthopedic surgery. Patients need additional resources to manage their pain. The purpose of this study was to determine if listening to music has a positive effect on pain scores and satisfaction in the postoperative adult orthopedic patient. There are limited studies demonstrating statistically significant decreases in postoperative pain in this group. A secondary purpose was to expose nurses on a standard medical-surgical unit to an intervention, supported by the holistic nursing model that they could use in their care. This study was a descriptive, comparative, quasi-experimental design. Patients listened to prerecorded music on individual CD players and recorded pre-post pain scores with the intervention. A satisfactory survey was completed at discharge. Results demonstrated a statistically significant reduction in patients' pain scores after listening to music. Length of listening time had no effect. Patients expressed overall satisfaction, and 100% of participants would recommend this intervention to others. Listening to music is beneficial as an adjunct to pain medication and contributes to increased patient satisfaction. It is hoped that the information gained from this study will lead to an enhancement in the standard of care for postoperative patients.

THE EFFECT OF METACOGNITIVE STRATEGY TRAINING AND RAISING EFL LEARNERS’ METACOGNITIVE KNOWLEDGE ON LISTENING PERFORMANCE

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Fatemeh Khonamri

2015-07-01

Full Text Available This study investigated the effect of metacognitive strategy training and the degree of metacognitive knowledge on EFL learners’ listening comprehension achievement. To this end and to complement the results of previous research, the participants were also involved in a self-rating process through engaging in log writing and completing a performance checklist. The participants were 40 female intermediate students studying English in a language institute in the north of Iran. Paired and Independent sample t-tests were used to compare the performance of the experimental group to that of the control group. Students’ listening logs and performance checklists were also investigated for finding traces of raised awareness and increased strategy use.  Results proved that strategy training and students’ degree of metacognitive knowledge affected their listening achievement. The results were enlightening in that students indicated greater tendency to become more strategic learners as a result of the training they received. An analysis of participants’ self- rating corroborated the attained results.

The Active Listening Room Simulator: Part 2

OpenAIRE

Naqvi, Amber; Rumsey, Francis

2001-01-01

This paper presents the results of computer simulation of active reflectors in a reference listening room which are used to create artificial reflections in a two speaker, stereo listening configuration. This formulates the second phase of experiments in the active listening room project involving the analysis of computer modeling results and loudspeaker selection based on free field response. The aim of this project is to create a truly variable listening condition in a reference listening r...

Textbook Evaluation: An Analysis of Listening Comprehension Parts in Top Notch 2A & 2B

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Afshin Soori

2015-10-01

Full Text Available Textbooks are the instruments that assist both teachers and learners in process of second language learning. With respect to the importance of textbooks in a language course, evaluation of course books is a significant issue for most researchers. The present study investigated and analyzed Listening Comprehension parts in Top Notch 2A & 2B 2nd edition. Top Notch 2A & 2B have 10 Units. The number of listening comprehension parts is in the range of 2 to 4 parts in each unit through the book. So the number of listening comprehension parts is not equally distributed. The participants of this study are 10 EFL teachers of two English language Institutes in Jahrom. Strong and weak aspects of Listening Comprehension parts have indicated in this research. The weaknesses involve the pictures and visuals are not clear enough to enhance students' motivation and interest, the audio is not completely suitable for students' English level, and Discussion parts are not stimulating students' talking. Furthermore this study revealed the crucial function of teachers in listening achievement of students. Keywords: textbook evaluation, listening comprehension, ELT

The Application of Podcasting as a Motivational Strategy to Iranian EFL Learners of English: A View toward Listening Comprehension

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Saeed Shiri

2015-06-01

Full Text Available This study was conducted in order to inspect the impact of podcasts as learning and teaching tools on Iranian EFL learners’ motivation for listening as well as on their listening comprehension ability. It also investigated the learners’ perception towards podcasts. 34 intermediate learners who were homogeneous in terms of listening ability were chosen and then assigned into two groups. While the experimental group were given the treatment i.e. podcasts, the control group received the traditional practice. Data analysis results showed that the learners in the podcasting group surpassed the participants in the control group in their listening comprehension tests and in ELCMS scale as used to measure changes in the motivation of learners for listening. Students' views about the program were also elicited via podcast contribution questionnaire and individual interviews. The analysis of qualitative data showed that students perceived improvement in their listening achievement. Keywords: CALL, Listening skill, Motivation, Motivational strategies, Podcast

Improving Students' Listening Skills. Idea Paper No. 23.

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Newton, Terry

Although listening has been shown to be the most frequent communication activity, and students desperately need listening training, the educational system usually ignores listening. After citing 10 bad listening habits which interfere with good aural communication and describing the characteristics of effective listeners, this paper offers 12…

Short-term auditory effects of listening to an MP3 player.

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Keppler, Hannah; Dhooge, Ingeborg; Maes, Leen; D'haenens, Wendy; Bockstael, Annelies; Philips, Birgit; Swinnen, Freya; Vinck, Bart

2010-06-01

To determine the output levels of a commercially available MPEG layer-3 (MP3) player and to evaluate changes in hearing after 1 hour of listening to the MP3 player. First, A-weighted sound pressure levels (measured in decibels [dBA]) for 1 hour of pop-rock music on an MP3 player were measured on a head and torso simulator. Second, after participants listened to 1 hour of pop-rock music using an MP3 player, changes in hearing were evaluated with pure-tone audiometry, transient-evoked otoacoustic emissions, and distortion product otoacoustic emissions. Twenty-one participants were exposed to pop-rock music in 6 different sessions using 2 types of headphones at multiple preset gain settings of the MP3 player. Output levels of an MP3 player and temporary threshold and emission shifts after 1 hour of listening. The output levels at the full gain setting were 97.36 dBA and 102.56 dBA for the supra-aural headphones and stock earbuds, respectively. In the noise exposure group, significant changes in hearing thresholds and transient-evoked otoacoustic emission amplitudes were found between preexposure and postexposure measurements. However, this pattern was not seen for distortion product otoacoustic emission amplitudes. Significant differences in the incidence of significant threshold or emission shifts were observed between almost every session of the noise exposure group compared with the control group. Temporary changes in hearing sensitivity measured by audiometry and otoacoustic emissions indicate the potential harmful effects of listening to an MP3 player. Further research is needed to evaluate the long-term risk of cumulative noise exposure on the auditory system of adolescents and adults.

Effects of listening to pleasant music on chronic unilateral neglect: a single-subject study.

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Tsai, Pei-Luen; Chen, Mei-Ching; Huang, Yu-Ting; Lin, Keh-Chung

2013-01-01

Recent studies suggest that the positive emotion induced by pleasant music may improve cognitive functions. We used the single-subject design to study whether listening to preferred music may reduce unilateral neglect in two participants with post-stroke neglect. These participants were instructed to listen to their preferred music every day for 5 weeks, followed by 2 weeks of follow-up assessment. Outcome measures involved the Star Cancellation Test, the Line Bisection Test, and the visual exploration task. A combination of visual analysis and the two-standard-deviation band method was used for data analysis. Both participants showed significant intervention-related improvements on all outcome measures except the Line Bisection Test, on which one participant showed no improvement. The therapeutic effects were maintained during the follow-up phase. The findings suggest that positive emotion, evoked by preferred music, may be used to ameliorate unilateral neglect. Further research using controlled trials is warranted to validate the findings.

Listening: A Virtue Account

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Rice, Suzanne; Burbules, Nicholas C.

2010-01-01

Background Context: Despite its significance for learning, listening has received very little attention in the philosophy of education literature. This article draws on the philosophy and educational thought of Aristotle to illuminate characteristics of good listening. The current project is exploratory and preliminary, seeking mainly to suggest…

An Investigation of the Relationship between Iranian EFL Learners’ Cultural Intelligence and Their Performance on the IELTS Listening Modules

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Arezoo Rafie

2016-06-01

Full Text Available This study aimed to investigate the relationship between Iranian EFL Learners’ Cultural intelligence (CQ and their performance on the IELTS Listening Module. Sixty advanced EFL students majoring in English translation at University of Zanjan were matched for the study through the Oxford Quick Placement Test. Cultural Intelligence Scale developed and validated by Ang et al. (2007 was used to assess the participants' cultural intelligence. The IELTS Listening Module and the Cultural Intelligence Scale were administered to the participants who were willing to take part in this study. The correlational analysis of the results revealed that there exists a statistically significant relationship between EFL learners’ CQ and their performance on IELTS Listening Module. Furthermore, running multiple regression analysis indicated that of the four components of CQ (i.e. metacognitive, cognitive, behavioral, and motivational CQs, motivational CQ is the best predictor forthe listening ability of EFL learners. The findings of the study highlight the importance of incorporating programs for teaching culture in the EFL classroom, as enhancing cultural intelligence related skills at schools and universities can promote better communicational skills. Keywords: Culture, cultural intelligence (CQ, teaching culture, listening comprehension, EFL learners

Listening to Children with Communication Impairment Talking through Their Drawings

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Holliday, Erin L.; Harrison, Linda J.; McLeod, Sharynne

2009-01-01

Including children as research participants is an important new direction in early childhood research. However, it is rare for such studies to include the voices of children with significant communication impairment. This article suggests that drawing may be an appropriate non-verbal method for "listening" to these children's ideas and recording…

Extensive Listening 2.0 with Foreign Language Podcasts

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Alm, Antonie

2013-01-01

This article investigates the use of podcasts for out-of-class listening practice. Drawing on Vandergrift and Goh's metacognitive approach to extensive listening, it discusses their principles for listening projects in the context of podcast-based listening. The study describes a class of 28 intermediate German students, who listened to…

Can We Teach Effective Listening? An Exploratory Study

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Caspersz, Donella; Stasinska, Ania

2015-01-01

Listening is not the same as hearing. While hearing is a physiological process, listening is a conscious process that requires us to be mentally attentive (Low & Sonntag, 2013). The obvious place for scholarship about listening is in communication studies. While interested in listening, the focus of this study is on effective listening.…

A MODEL OF EFL LISTENING MATERIALS DEVELOPMENT

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Mochamad Zaenuri

2015-12-01

Full Text Available In oral communication, listening skill is important because communication does not take place successfully if the message stated is not understood. To master the skill, learners should learn it. Therefore, good listening materials are needed. However, English teachers often find it difficult to teach listening skills because the listening materials are not adequately available. Besides, if the materials are available, they are not appropriate with the students’ needs and the curriculum. In that case, English teachers need to develop listening materials by themselves. For this, they should have knowledge of materials development. This paper presents ideas and tips for English teachers how to develop good and applicable listening materials.

Empirical Validation of Listening Proficiency Guidelines

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Cox, Troy L.; Clifford, Ray

2014-01-01

Because listening has received little attention and the validation of ability scales describing multidimensional skills is always challenging, this study applied a multistage, criterion-referenced approach that used a framework of aligned audio passages and listening tasks to explore the validity of the ACTFL and related listening proficiency…

The Effect of Digital Stories on Enhancing Iranian Pre-intermediate EFL Learners' Listening Comprehension

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Nasrin Hadidi Tamjid

2012-11-01

Full Text Available Learning a foreign language is a challenging process in which learners need motivation and encouragement through the use of modern techniques. The present paper investigates the effects digital stories may have on Iranian pre-intermediate EFL learners’ listening comprehension. To this end, the researchers carried out a quasi-experimental research in a language institution in Tabriz (Iran. In total, forty, 11-14-year-old female students participated in this research. Twenty students were in the experimental group and twenty in the control group. The Preliminary English Test (PET was administered at the beginning of the study to check whether all participants were homogeneous in terms of English language proficiency. A pre-test of listening comprehension was designed to gather initial data on the learners' listening skill prior to the treatment. The experimental group was presented with digital stories in a technology-equipped classroom. After the treatment, a post-test was administered to both groups to test the learners' progression in listening comprehension. Then, using an ANCOVA test, the performance of two groups was compared.The findings indicated that the experimental group outperformed the control group in the final test. The results raise interesting issues related to the use of technology in the context of foreign language learning, substantiating the link between technology rich environment and improved language learning.

On the importance of listening comprehension.

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Hogan, Tiffany P; Adlof, Suzanne M; Alonzo, Crystle N

2014-06-01

The simple view of reading highlights the importance of two primary components which account for individual differences in reading comprehension across development: word recognition (i.e., decoding) and listening comprehension. While assessments and interventions for decoding have been the focus of pedagogy in the past several decades, the importance of listening comprehension has received less attention. This paper reviews evidence showing that listening comprehension becomes the dominating influence on reading comprehension starting even in the elementary grades. It also highlights a growing number of children who fail to develop adequate reading comprehension skills, primarily due to deficient listening comprehension skills (i.e., poor comprehenders). Finally we discuss key language influences on listening comprehension for consideration during assessment and treatment of reading disabilities.

Familiarity Affects Entrainment of EEG in Music Listening

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Yuiko Kumagai

2017-07-01

Full Text Available Music perception involves complex brain functions. The relationship between music and brain such as cortical entrainment to periodic tune, periodic beat, and music have been well investigated. It has also been reported that the cerebral cortex responded more strongly to the periodic rhythm of unfamiliar music than to that of familiar music. However, previous works mainly used simple and artificial auditory stimuli like pure tone or beep. It is still unclear how the brain response is influenced by the familiarity of music. To address this issue, we analyzed electroencelphalogram (EEG to investigate the relationship between cortical response and familiarity of music using melodies produced by piano sounds as simple natural stimuli. The cross-correlation function averaged across trials, channels, and participants showed two pronounced peaks at time lags around 70 and 140 ms. At the two peaks the magnitude of the cross-correlation values were significantly larger when listening to unfamiliar and scrambled music compared to those when listening to familiar music. Our findings suggest that the response to unfamiliar music is stronger than that to familiar music. One potential application of our findings would be the discrimination of listeners' familiarity with music, which provides an important tool for assessment of brain activity.

Magnitude of phonetic distinction predicts success at early word learning in native and non-native accents

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Paola eEscudero

2014-09-01

Full Text Available Although infants perceptually attune to native vowels and consonants well before 12 months, at 13–15 months, they have difficulty learning to associate novel words that differ by their initial consonant (e.g., BIN and DIN to their visual referents. However, this difficulty may not apply to all minimal-pair novel words. While Canadian English (CE 15-month-olds failed to respond to a switch from the newly learned word DEET to the novel nonword DOOT, they did notice a switch from DEET to DIT (Curtin, Fennell, & Escudero, 2009. Those authors argued that early word learners capitalize on large phonetic differences, seen in CE DEET–DIT, but not on smaller phonetic differences, as in CE DEET–DOOT. To assess this hypothesis, we tested Australian English (AusE 15-month-olds, as AusE has a smaller magnitude of phonetic difference in both novel word pairs. Two groups of infants were trained on the novel word DEET and tested on the vowel switches in DIT and DOOT, produced by an AusE female speaker or the same CE female speaker as in Curtin et al. (2009. If the size of the phonetic distinction plays a more central role than native accent experience in early word learning, AusE children should more easily recognize both of the unfamiliar but larger CE vowel switches than the more familiar but smaller AusE ones. The results support our phonetic-magnitude hypothesis: AusE children taught and tested with the CE-accented novel words looked longer to both of the switch test trials (DIT, DOOT than same test trials (DEET, while those who heard the AusE-accented tokens did not notice either switch. Implications of our findings for models of early word learning are discussed.

The music listening preferences and habits of youths in Singapore and its relation to leisure noise-induced hearing loss.

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Lee, Gary Jek Chong; Lim, Ming Yann; Kuan, Angeline Yi Wei; Teo, Joshua Han Wei; Tan, Hui Guang; Low, Wong Kein

2014-02-01

Noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) is a preventable condition, and much has been done to protect workers from it. However, thus far, little attention has been given to leisure NIHL. The purpose of this study is to determine the possible music listening preferences and habits among young people in Singapore that may put them at risk of developing leisure NIHL. In our study, the proportion of participants exposed to > 85 dBA for eight hours a day (time-weighted average) was calculated by taking into account the daily number of hours spent listening to music and by determining the average sound pressure level at which music was listened to. A total of 1,928 students were recruited from Temasek Polytechnic, Singapore. Of which, 16.4% of participants listened to portable music players with a time-weighted average of > 85 dBA for 8 hours. On average, we found that male students were more likely to listen to music at louder volumes than female students (p students in our study listened to louder music than the Chinese students (p leisure NIHL from music delivered via earphones. As additional risks due to exposure to leisure noise from other sources was not taken into account, the extent of the problem of leisure NIHL may be even greater. There is a compelling need for an effective leisure noise prevention program among young people in Singapore.

Investigating Norms of Listening in Classrooms

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Sangster, Pauline; Anderson, Charles

2009-01-01

Previous research into listening has tended to focus on individual processing rather than on how sociocultural contexts mediate the nature and quality of listening. This article draws on a study involving observations of listening lessons conducted by ten English teachers regarded as skilled practitioners, interviews with these teachers and with…

Effects of music listening on anxiety and physiological responses in patients undergoing awake craniotomy.

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Wu, Pao-Yuan; Huang, Mei-Lin; Lee, Wen-Ping; Wang, Chi; Shih, Whei-Mei

2017-06-01

The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of music listening on the level of anxiety and physiological responses for awake craniotomy. An experimental design with randomization was applied in this study. Participants in experimental group (19 patients) selected and listened music at their preferences in the waiting room and throughout the entire surgical procedure in addition to usual care while control group (19 patients) only gave usual care. State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), heartbeat, breathing, and blood pressure were collected for analysis. The results of this study showed that after music listening, there was significant decrease in the level of anxiety (pawake craniotomy patients. The results of this study can provide perioperative nursing care in providing music listening when patients were in the waiting room and during surgery to reduce the anxiety so as to reach the goal of human care and improve perioperative nursing care. Copyright © 2017 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Do Speakers and Listeners Observe the Gricean Maxim of Quantity?

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Engelhardt, Paul E.; Bailey, Karl G. D.; Ferreira, Fernanda

2006-01-01

The Gricean Maxim of Quantity is believed to govern linguistic performance. Speakers are assumed to provide as much information as required for referent identification and no more, and listeners are believed to expect unambiguous but concise descriptions. In three experiments we examined the extent to which naive participants are sensitive to the…

Listen and the question of silence

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Doubinsky, Sebastien

2018-01-01

Listen is a film about words, but around words. The words become useless and are surrounded by silence. And the whole film is constructed on this silence, which builds up like an unbreakable wall. The question is thus: what are we listening to? What should we listen to? And maybe, even more crucial...

Beat processing is pre-attentive for metrically simple rhythms with clear accents: an ERP study.

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Fleur L Bouwer

Full Text Available The perception of a regular beat is fundamental to music processing. Here we examine whether the detection of a regular beat is pre-attentive for metrically simple, acoustically varying stimuli using the mismatch negativity (MMN, an ERP response elicited by violations of acoustic regularity irrespective of whether subjects are attending to the stimuli. Both musicians and non-musicians were presented with a varying rhythm with a clear accent structure in which occasionally a sound was omitted. We compared the MMN response to the omission of identical sounds in different metrical positions. Most importantly, we found that omissions in strong metrical positions, on the beat, elicited higher amplitude MMN responses than omissions in weak metrical positions, not on the beat. This suggests that the detection of a beat is pre-attentive when highly beat inducing stimuli are used. No effects of musical expertise were found. Our results suggest that for metrically simple rhythms with clear accents beat processing does not require attention or musical expertise. In addition, we discuss how the use of acoustically varying stimuli may influence ERP results when studying beat processing.

Active listening in medical consultations: development of the Active Listening Observation Scale (ALOS-global).

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Fassaert, T.; Dulmen, S. van; Schellevis, F.; Bensing, J.

2007-01-01

OBJECTIVE: Active listening is a prerequisite for a successful healthcare encounter, bearing potential therapeutic value especially in clinical situations that require no specific medical intervention. Although generally acknowledged as such, active listening has not been studied in depth. This

Music appreciation and music listening in prelingual and postlingually deaf adult cochlear implant recipients.

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Moran, Michelle; Rousset, Alexandra; Looi, Valerie

2016-01-01

To explore the music appreciation of prelingually deaf adults using cochlear implants (CIs). Cohort study. Adult CI recipients were recruited based on hearing history and asked to complete the University of Canterbury Music Listening Questionnaire (UCMLQ) to assess each individual's music listening and appreciation. Results were compared to previous responses to the UCMLQ from a large cohort of postlingually deaf CI recipients. Fifteen prelingually deaf and 15 postlingually deaf adult cochlear implant recipients. No significant differences were found between the prelingual and postlingual participants for amount of music listening or music listening enjoyment with their CI. Sound quality of common instruments was favourable for both groups, with no significant difference in the pleasantness/naturalness of instrument sounds between the groups. Prelingually deaf CI recipients rated themselves as significantly less able to follow a melody line and identify instrument styles compared to their postlingual peers. The results suggest that the pre- and postlingually deaf CI recipients demonstrate equivalent levels of music appreciation. This finding is of clinical importance, as CI clinicians should be actively encouraging all of their recipients to explore music listening as a part of their rehabilitation.

Human listening studies reveal insights into object features extracted by echolocating dolphins

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Delong, Caroline M.; Au, Whitlow W. L.; Roitblat, Herbert L.

2004-05-01

Echolocating dolphins extract object feature information from the acoustic parameters of object echoes. However, little is known about which object features are salient to dolphins or how they extract those features. To gain insight into how dolphins might be extracting feature information, human listeners were presented with echoes from objects used in a dolphin echoic-visual cross-modal matching task. Human participants performed a task similar to the one the dolphin had performed; however, echoic samples consisting of 23-echo trains were presented via headphones. The participants listened to the echoic sample and then visually selected the correct object from among three alternatives. The participants performed as well as or better than the dolphin (M=88.0% correct), and reported using a combination of acoustic cues to extract object features (e.g., loudness, pitch, timbre). Participants frequently reported using the pattern of aural changes in the echoes across the echo train to identify the shape and structure of the objects (e.g., peaks in loudness or pitch). It is likely that dolphins also attend to the pattern of changes across echoes as objects are echolocated from different angles.

Listening and Legos[TM

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Morris, Pamela

2012-01-01

This simple exercise, performed in teams, gives students practice in listening to instructions, particularly when there are restrictions for the communication. The teams compete in a limited amount of time to build a Lego[TM] structure based on the instructions of one team member. Which team listens the best and is most successful?

Het poëtisch accent. Drie literaire genres in zeventiende-eeuwse Nederlandse pamfletten

OpenAIRE

Vrieler, J.A.

2007-01-01

'The poetic accent. Three literary genres in seventeenth-century Dutch pamphlets' focuses on the way the conviction works, by studying pamphlets containing sonnets, songs and echo-poetry. I distinguish between structural and affective functions of poetry. Within the composition of a pamphlet, poetry was often given an exordial or perorational function. Poetry before the main text was well suited to portray the author in a good way, to deliver the message of the pamphlet as a kind of device an...

Familiarity mediates the relationship between emotional arousal and pleasure during music listening

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van den Bosch, Iris; Salimpoor, Valorie N.; Zatorre, Robert J.

2013-01-01

Emotional arousal appears to be a major contributing factor to the pleasure that listeners experience in response to music. Accordingly, a strong positive correlation between self-reported pleasure and electrodermal activity (EDA), an objective indicator of emotional arousal, has been demonstrated when individuals listen to familiar music. However, it is not yet known to what extent familiarity contributes to this relationship. In particular, as listening to familiar music involves expectations and predictions over time based on veridical knowledge of the piece, it could be that such memory factors plays a major role. Here, we tested such a contribution by using musical stimuli entirely unfamiliar to listeners. In a second experiment we repeated the novel music to experimentally establish a sense of familiarity. We aimed to determine whether (1) pleasure and emotional arousal would continue to correlate when listeners have no explicit knowledge of how the tones will unfold, and (2) whether this could be enhanced by experimentally-induced familiarity. In the first experiment, we presented 33 listeners with 70 unfamiliar musical excerpts in two sessions. There was no relationship between the degree of experienced pleasure and emotional arousal as measured by EDA. In the second experiment, 7 participants listened to 35 unfamiliar excerpts over two sessions separated by 30 min. Repeated exposure significantly increased EDA, even though individuals did not explicitly recall having heard all the pieces before. Furthermore, increases in self-reported familiarity significantly enhanced experienced pleasure and there was a general, though not significant, increase in EDA. These results suggest that some level of expectation and predictability mediated by prior exposure to a given piece of music play an important role in the experience of emotional arousal in response to music. PMID:24046738

Metacognitive Strategy Instruction as a Means to Improve Listening SelfEfficacy among Iranian Undergraduate Learners of English

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Maryam Rahimirad

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Metacognitive strategy instruction (MetSI has been shown to have a strong impact on various aspects of English as a second/foreign language instruction. The present study aimed to investigate the effect of MetSI on the improvement of listening selfefficacy among English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL learners. A group of sixty female undergraduate learners of English literature at a state-run university in Iran consented to take part in this study. After homogenizing the participants' English proficiency level using a sample section of the British Council IELTS test, 40 learners were selected whose English proficiency fell within intermediate to upperintermediate level. A listening self-efficacy questionnaire (borrowed from Rahimi and Abedini, 2009 was used to measure the participants’ level of listening selfefficacy in the pre and post-test phases of the study. The participants were randomly assigned to treatment (n=20 and control (n=20 groups. The treatment group received 8 hours of MetSI during eight sessions based on the model proposed by Vandergrift (2003 while the control group didn't receive any explicit MetSI. The control group received the usual training in listening instead.

The Impact of Listening Strategy Training on the Meta-Cognitive Listening Strategies Awareness of Different Learner Types

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Zarrabi, Fatemeh

2016-01-01

The present study investigated the effectiveness of listening strategy instruction on the metacognitive listening strategies awareness of different EFL learner types (LTs). To achieve this goal, 150 EFL students took part in the study and were taught based on a guided lesson plan regarding listening strategies and a pre-test/post-test design was…

Factors of the active listening of preschool children

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Purić Daliborka S.

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Active listening is a communication skill which is crucial for the development of cooperative relationships in the group, culture of friendship and fellowship, it is also important for the development of literacy skills and talent for speaking. Furthermore, it contributes to the improvement of the level of knowledge, skills and school achievement, as well as to the development of self-confidence of children. Developing of active listening is an important task in the activities with children of preschool age. In this paper, the author, wanting to determine the importance of the factors of active listening of preschool children, examines how preschool teachers (N = 198: (a evaluate the importance of certain elements of active listening that relate to the speaker and the listener, and (b estimate their role in the process of developing active listening skills of preschool children as an essential element of successful interpersonal communication. Results of the survey show that preschool teachers attach greater importance to the factors of active listening related to the listener (attention, listening skill, interest in the subject, than to the factors related to the speaker (motivation for listening, quality of the narrative. More than two-thirds of surveyed preschool teachers (172 or 86.9% define its impact on the stimulation of active listening of children as significant. Work experience and professional qualifications as independent variables significantly influence the attitudes of preschool teachers about the importance of their impact in stimulating active listening. Preschool teacher is a key element of the training of preschool children in the area of the basic communication skills of active listening. In this sense, the results of our survey show that in the context of academic study programs for education of preschool teachers special attention is given to the communication skills and to their role in the development of active listening

“LISTENING AND REMEMBERING”: NETWORKED OFF-LINE IMPROVISATION FOR FOUR COMMUTERS

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Ximena Alarcón

2011-12-01

Full Text Available This paper analyses the experience of the networked off-line improvisation ‘Listening and Remembering’, a performance for four commuters using voices and sounds from the Mexico City and Paris metros. It addresses the question: how can an act of collective remembering, inspired by listening to metro soundscapes, lead to the creation of networked voice-and sound-based narratives about the urban commuting experience? The networked experience is seen here from the structural perspective (telematic setting, the sonic underground context, the ethnographic process that led to the performance, the narratives that are created in the electro-acoustic setting, the shared acoustic environments that those creations suggest, and the technical features and participants’ responses that pre- vent or facilitate interaction. Emphasis is placed on the participants’ status as non-performers, and on their familiarity with the sonic environment, as a context that allows the participation of non-musicians in the making of music through telematically shared interfaces, using soundscape and real-time voice. Participants re-enact their routine experience through a dialogical relationship with the sounds, the other participants, themselves, and the experience of sharing: a collective memory.

Fitting a Mixture Rasch Model to English as a Foreign Language Listening Tests: The Role of Cognitive and Background Variables in Explaining Latent Differential Item Functioning

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Aryadoust, Vahid

2015-01-01

The present study uses a mixture Rasch model to examine latent differential item functioning in English as a foreign language listening tests. Participants (n = 250) took a listening and lexico-grammatical test and completed the metacognitive awareness listening questionnaire comprising problem solving (PS), planning and evaluation (PE), mental…

The Influence of Working Memory on Listening Comprehension

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

张军

2008-01-01

@@ We many notice that in listening classroom, what proficient students complain most is that they can get every word in the listening material but the most difficult thing for them is to keep in mind what they have heard. Although listening comprehension is now widely considered to be of great importance in second language learning and is extensively studied, there has not been enough research on listening comprehensionfrom the language processing perspective. And there is not too much studies involving the concept of memory in listening comprehension,especially the relationship between working memory capacity and listening comprehension.

Tuning with the listeners: portrait of citizens’ participation in the public opinion programmes Antena Aberta and Fórum TSF

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Fábio Ribeiro

2011-12-01

Full Text Available Several studies have been able to identify the constant lack of interest of the scientific community of communication towards the field of radio (Antón & Serrano, 2007; Balsebre, 1994. This is probably a common aspect in some of the researchers who have dedicated their work in order to discuss several questions posed to the radio as a mass media profoundly connected with the social ecosystem. Probably it is harder though to find identical perspectives regarding the current landscape of radio. Besides debating in certain way, how can we describe the actual state of this media, it is still important to focus on one of its historical characteristics: its connection with the telephone and, therefore, with listeners, as well as their eventual intervention. This has been a concern for some researchers as some of them have defined participation as a especial format or genre within radio productions (Cébrian Herreros, 2001; Merayo Pérez, 2000. This represents the considerable importance that this concept has been able to gather in recent studies, as well as it contributes to reinforce the role of media institutions, in general, and radio, particularly, to draw efficient strategies to integrate citizens’ intervention in a healthy and democratic way. From some theoretical approaches, notwithstanding citizens’ participation as a key concept of this paper, it will presented a case study which has basically tried to compare the dynamics of participation in two public opinion programmes in the Portuguese radio: Antena Aberta and Fórum da TSF. Hence these two formats will try to understand how Portuguese media productions are working presently to empower citizens to participate in these formats. Thus, some criteria have been drawn to establish this comparison, for instance, the available platforms to participate, selection of participants, schedules for the programme’sbroadcasting, or subjects discussed. Following the title of this journal, how

Working memory: Differences between young adults and the aged in listening tasks *

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Maria Isabel d'Ávila Freitas

Full Text Available Abstract Working memory is a system with a limited capacity which enables the temporary storage and manipulation of the information necessary for complex cognitive tasks. Numerous studies have suggested that performance in these tasks is related to age where older adults have a lesser performance than the young. Objective: To analyze the processing functions of working memory in a listening task. Method: 59 educated participants aged between 19 and 76 years having no memory complaints were divided into two groups (young and aged adults. The test administered was the adapted Listening Span, in which the subject listens to a sentence, judging whether it is true or false and, concomitantly, stores the last word of each sentence for later evocation. Results: In the judgment task, performance of both groups approached to a similar average. Results of sentence recall demonstrated that with the increase in number of sentences at each level, performance of both groups declined. In the blocks of sentences 1 and 2 at level 1, all participants performed similarly. In the block of sentences 3, at level 1, there was a difference between the young and the aged. From this level onward (retention of 3 to 5 items, the aged and the young differed significantly. Conclusions: An increase in the number of sentences diminished participants' performance of temporary storage in the recall tasks, while not interfering in the processing of sentences during judgment. The difference between the young and the aged became more accentuated as item retention demands increased.

Dichotic Listening Can Improve Perceived Clarity of Music in Cochlear Implant Users

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Nicolas Vannson

2015-08-01

Full Text Available Musical enjoyment for cochlear implant (CI recipients is often reported to be unsatisfactory. Our goal was to determine whether the musical experience of postlingually deafened adult CI recipients could be enriched by presenting the bass and treble clef parts of short polyphonic piano pieces separately to each ear (dichotic. Dichotic presentation should artificially enhance the lateralization cues of each part and help the listeners to better segregate them and thus provide greater clarity. We also hypothesized that perception of the intended emotion of the pieces and their overall enjoyment would be enhanced in the dichotic mode compared with the monophonic (both parts in the same ear and the diotic mode (both parts in both ears. Twenty-eight piano pieces specifically composed to induce sad or happy emotions were selected. The tempo of the pieces, which ranged from lento to presto covaried with the intended emotion (from sad to happy. Thirty participants (11 normal-hearing listeners, 11 bimodal CI and hearing-aid users, and 8 bilaterally implanted CI users participated in this study. Participants were asked to rate the perceived clarity, the intended emotion, and their preference of each piece in different listening modes. Results indicated that dichotic presentation produced small significant improvements in subjective ratings based on perceived clarity. We also found that preference and clarity ratings were significantly higher for pieces with fast tempi compared with slow tempi. However, no significant differences between diotic and dichotic presentation were found for the participants’ preference ratings, or their judgments of intended emotion.

Effective Listening: Five Lessons from the Best.

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Watson, Kittie W

For many nurses, especially when workloads are high, it can be difficult to listen carefully to patients. Federally mandated Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) surveys that help determine insurance reimbursement are asking patients how carefully their nurses listened. For Christian nurses, effective listening demonstrates the compassion, understanding, and care modeled by Jesus. An exploration of Jesus' responses reveals five ways Christ effectively listened to people that can guide nurses.

Second Language Learners' Perceptions of Listening Strategy Instruction

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Siegel, Joseph

2013-01-01

Much research regarding listening strategies has focused on assembling lists of reported strategies and gaining better understanding of differences in strategy usage between less- and more-skilled listeners. Less attention has been given to how the accumulating knowledge based on listening strategies informs listening strategy instruction as…

L2 listening at work

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Øhrstrøm, Charlotte

This dissertation on adult second language (L2) learning investigates individual learners’ experiences with listening in Danish as an L2 in everyday situations at work. More specifically, the study explores when international employees, who work at international companies in Denmark with English...... as a corporate language, listen in Danish at work, how they handle these situations, what problems they experience, and why some situations are more difficult to listen in than others. The study makes use of qualitative research methods and theoretical aspects from psycholinguistic approaches as well as socially...

The association of noise sensitivity with music listening, training, and aptitude

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Marina Kliuchko

2015-01-01

Full Text Available After intensive, long-term musical training, the auditory system of a musician is specifically tuned to perceive musical sounds. We wished to find out whether a musician′s auditory system also develops increased sensitivity to any sound of everyday life, experiencing them as noise. For this purpose, an online survey, including questionnaires on noise sensitivity, musical background, and listening tests for assessing musical aptitude, was administered to 197 participants in Finland and Italy. Subjective noise sensitivity (assessed with the Weinstein′s Noise Sensitivity Scale was analyzed for associations with musicianship, musical aptitude, weekly time spent listening to music, and the importance of music in each person′s life (or music importance. Subjects were divided into three groups according to their musical expertise: Nonmusicians (N = 103, amateur musicians (N = 44, and professional musicians (N = 50. The results showed that noise sensitivity did not depend on musical expertise or performance on musicality tests or the amount of active (attentive listening to music. In contrast, it was associated with daily passive listening to music, so that individuals with higher noise sensitivity spent less time in passive (background listening to music than those with lower sensitivity to noise. Furthermore, noise-sensitive respondents rated music as less important in their life than did individuals with lower sensitivity to noise. The results demonstrate that the special sensitivity of the auditory system derived from musical training does not lead to increased irritability from unwanted sounds. However, the disposition to tolerate contingent musical backgrounds in everyday life depends on the individual′s noise sensitivity.

The association of noise sensitivity with music listening, training, and aptitude.

Science.gov (United States)

Kliuchko, Marina; Heinonen-Guzejev, Marja; Monacis, Lucia; Gold, Benjamin P; Heikkilä, Kauko V; Spinosa, Vittoria; Tervaniemi, Mari; Brattico, Elvira

2015-01-01

After intensive, long-term musical training, the auditory system of a musician is specifically tuned to perceive musical sounds. We wished to find out whether a musician's auditory system also develops increased sensitivity to any sound of everyday life, experiencing them as noise. For this purpose, an online survey, including questionnaires on noise sensitivity, musical background, and listening tests for assessing musical aptitude, was administered to 197 participants in Finland and Italy. Subjective noise sensitivity (assessed with the Weinstein's Noise Sensitivity Scale) was analyzed for associations with musicianship, musical aptitude, weekly time spent listening to music, and the importance of music in each person's life (or music importance). Subjects were divided into three groups according to their musical expertise: Nonmusicians (N = 103), amateur musicians (N = 44), and professional musicians (N = 50). The results showed that noise sensitivity did not depend on musical expertise or performance on musicality tests or the amount of active (attentive) listening to music. In contrast, it was associated with daily passive listening to music, so that individuals with higher noise sensitivity spent less time in passive (background) listening to music than those with lower sensitivity to noise. Furthermore, noise-sensitive respondents rated music as less important in their life than did individuals with lower sensitivity to noise. The results demonstrate that the special sensitivity of the auditory system derived from musical training does not lead to increased irritability from unwanted sounds. However, the disposition to tolerate contingent musical backgrounds in everyday life depends on the individual's noise sensitivity.

Listening Effectively For Results in an ESL/EFL Classroom. | Umera ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

... looks into the different listening styles exhibited by people; gives reasons why people are poor listeners and how to develop effective listening habit. It also states what an ideal listening process ought to be; what people listen to and how to improve listening through active and critical listening. African Research Review Vol ...

Rethinking Conceptual Approaches to the Study of "Listening"

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Bostrom, Robert N.

2011-01-01

Theory about listening has been strongly affected by methodological orientations and institutional pressures. It would help if researchers spent more time on the objects of study rather than method. Traditional listening research has confused listening with general cognitive abilities, such as IQ. Studying listening as memory is a tempting…

English Songs as an Effective Asset to Improve Listening Comprehension ability; Evidence from Iranian EFL Learners

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Samira Rahbar

2013-11-01

Full Text Available The present study has made an attempt to investigate the effectiveness of using English songs and lyrics on improving the listening comprehension ability of adult EFL learners in Iran. The participants of the study were selected based on their results in an OPT exam. 40 students whose score fell between 1SD below and above the mean were randomly assigned to two groups of control and experimental. At the beginning of the study a pre-test was run and the results of the groups were compared. The results didn’t show any specific difference between the groups. Experimental group received treatment via listening practice by English songs for two months. By the end of the study a listening post-test was run and the result of the independent sample t-test showed a significant difference between the control and experimental group. The findings of the study indicated that listening to English songs can be an effective way to improve listening comprehension ability of EFL learners.

Influence of text type, topic familiarity, and stuttering frequency on listener recall, comprehension, and mental effort.

Science.gov (United States)

Panico, James; Healey, E Charles

2009-04-01

To determine how text type, topic familiarity, and stuttering frequency influence listener recall, comprehension, and perceived mental effort. Sixty adults listened to familiar and unfamiliar narrative and expository texts produced with 0%, 5%, 10%, and 15% stuttering. Participants listened to 4 experimental text samples at only 1 stuttering frequency. After hearing the text samples, each listener performed a free recall task, answered cued recall questions, answered story comprehension questions, and rated their perceived mental effort. Free and cued recall as well as story comprehension scores were higher for narrative than for expository texts. Free and cued recall scores were better for familiar than for unfamiliar stories, although topic familiarity did not affect story comprehension scores. Samples with all levels of stuttering resulted in higher mental effort ratings for both text types and topic familiarities. Stuttering has a greater influence on listener recall and comprehension for narrative than for expository texts. Topic familiarity affects free and cued recall but has no influence on story comprehension. Regardless of the amount of stuttering, mental effort was high for both text types and levels of familiarity.

Communication Games: Participant's Manual.

Science.gov (United States)

Krupar, Karen R.

Using a series of communicational games, the author leads the participant through self-awareness, verbal and nonverbal communication, decision-making, problem-solving, and skills in perception, listening, and small group, organizational, and cultural communications. The thesis behind the book is that model-making, role-playing, or other forms of…

The Temporal Dynamics of Spoken Word Recognition in Adverse Listening Conditions

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Brouwer, Susanne; Bradlow, Ann R.

2016-01-01

This study examined the temporal dynamics of spoken word recognition in noise and background speech. In two visual-world experiments, English participants listened to target words while looking at four pictures on the screen: a target (e.g. "candle"), an onset competitor (e.g. "candy"), a rhyme competitor (e.g.…

Listen: when words don't come easy.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Dulmen, S. van

2017-01-01

Objective: Listening is at the very heart of communication in healthcare, but largely ignored in research and teaching. This paper presents different perspectives on listening within the context of healthcare and its implications for goal-directed communication. Methods: The assets of listening

Can a hearing education campaign for adolescents change their music listening behavior?

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Weichbold, Viktor; Zorowka, Patrick

2007-03-01

This study looked at whether a hearing education campaign would have behavioral effects on the music listening practices of high school students. A total of 1757 students participated in a hearing education campaign. Before the campaign and one year thereafter they completed a survey asking for: (1) average frequency of discotheque attendance, (2) average duration of stay in the discotheque, (3) use of earplugs in discotheques, (4) frequency of regeneration breaks while at a discotheque, and (5) mean time per week spent listening to music through headphones. On questions (2), (3) and (5) no relevant post-campaign changes were reported. On question (1) students' answers indicated that the frequency of discotheque attendance had even increased after the campaign. The only change in keeping with the purpose of the campaign was an increase in the number of regeneration breaks when at a discotheque. The effect of hearing education campaigns on music listening behavior is questioned. Additional efforts are suggested to encourage adolescents to adopt protective behaviors.

Effects of test method and participant musical training on preference ratings of stimuli with different reverberation times.

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Lawless, Martin S; Vigeant, Michelle C

2017-10-01

Selecting an appropriate listening test design for concert hall research depends on several factors, including listening test method and participant critical-listening experience. Although expert listeners afford more reliable data, their perceptions may not be broadly representative. The present paper contains two studies that examined the validity and reliability of the data obtained from two listening test methods, a successive and a comparative method, and two types of participants, musicians and non-musicians. Participants rated their overall preference of auralizations generated from eight concert hall conditions with a range of reverberation times (0.0-7.2 s). Study 1, with 34 participants, assessed the two methods. The comparative method yielded similar results and reliability as the successive method. Additionally, the comparative method was rated as less difficult and more preferable. For study 2, an additional 37 participants rated the stimuli using the comparative method only. An analysis of variance of the responses from both studies revealed that musicians are better than non-musicians at discerning their preferences across stimuli. This result was confirmed with a k-means clustering analysis on the entire dataset that revealed five preference groups. Four groups exhibited clear preferences to the stimuli, while the fifth group, predominantly comprising non-musicians, demonstrated no clear preference.

The Relevance of Accent in L2 Pronunciation Instruction: A Matter of Teaching Cultures or Language Ideologies?

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Falkert, Anika

2016-01-01

The aim of this paper is to offer a critical discussion of the role of native and foreign accents in L2 pronunciation teaching. Several studies concluded that classroom practices of grammar instruction are strongly influenced by teaching cultures. We will examine whether this is also the case for pronunciation teaching. While the CEFR…

Dichotic listening performance predicts language comprehension.

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Asbjørnsen, Arve E; Helland, Turid

2006-05-01

Dichotic listening performance is considered a reliable and valid procedure for the assessment of language lateralisation in the brain. However, the documentation of a relationship between language functions and dichotic listening performance is sparse, although it is accepted that dichotic listening measures language perception. In particular, language comprehension should show close correspondence to perception of language stimuli. In the present study, we tested samples of reading-impaired and normally achieving children between 10 and 13 years of age with tests of reading skills, language comprehension, and dichotic listening to consonant-vowel (CV) syllables. A high correlation between the language scores and the dichotic listening performance was expected. However, since the left ear score is believed to be an error when assessing language laterality, covariation was expected for the right ear scores only. In addition, directing attention to one ear input was believed to reduce the influence of random factors, and thus show a more concise estimate of left hemisphere language capacity. Thus, a stronger correlation between language comprehension skills and the dichotic listening performance when attending to the right ear was expected. The analyses yielded a positive correlation between the right ear score in DL and language comprehension, an effect that was stronger when attending to the right ear. The present results confirm the assumption that dichotic listening with CV syllables measures an aspect of language perception and language skills that is related to general language comprehension.

The effect of extending high-frequency bandwidth on the acceptable noise level (ANL) of hearing-impaired listeners.

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Johnson, Earl; Ricketts, Todd; Hornsby, Benjamin

2009-01-01

This study examined the effects of extending high-frequency bandwidth, for both a speech signal and a background noise, on the acceptable signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of listeners with mild sensorineural hearing loss through utilization of the Acceptable Noise Level (ANL) procedure. In addition to extending high-frequency bandwidth, the effects of reverberation time and background noise type and shape were also examined. The study results showed a significant increase in the mean ANL (i.e. participants requested a better SNR for an acceptable listening situation) when high-frequency bandwidth was extended from 3 to 9 kHz and from 6 to 9 kHz. No change in the ANL of study participants was observed as a result of isolated modification to reverberation time or background noise stimulus. An interaction effect, however, of reverberation time and background noise stimulus was demonstrated. These findings may have implications for future design of hearing aid memory programs for listening to speech in the presence of broadband background noise.

Maltreatment type and behaviors: does listening matter?

Science.gov (United States)

Merritt, Darcey H; Snyder, Susan M

2014-12-01

This article presents an exploratory assessment of whether children's perceptions of caseworker support (e.g. feeling listened to) moderates the relationship between the type of maltreatment and problematic behaviors. Relying on data collected for the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW I), this research measures how often children felt listened to by their caseworkers and the effect on the relationship between two types of maltreatment (e.g. physical abuse and neglect) and problematic child behaviors. Results indicate that whereas children reported feeling listened to most of the time, there are significant differences in the probabilities of problematic behavior scores between physically abused and neglected children according to how often they felt listened to. With the exception of those children who felt listened to all of the time, physically abused children have a higher probability of problematic behaviors than neglected children. Comparisons between the two maltreatment types indicate a greater impact of listening on physically abused children across the continuum of feeling listened to (e.g. never to all of the time), than for neglected children, except for at the highest level of listening, as results indicate a small, but significant difference indicating neglected children are more positively impacted by listening than physically abused kids. Implications for practice are that children's perceptions of support from caseworkers may influence behavioral outcomes differently according to maltreatment type. Additionally, these findings encourage the inclusion of children's perspectives regarding the relationships they have with caseworkers. Copyright © 2014. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

The role of working memory in dichotic-listening studies of auditory laterality.

Science.gov (United States)

Penner, Iris-Katharina; Schläfli, Katrin; Opwis, Klaus; Hugdahl, Kenneth

2009-11-01

We present data related to the role of working memory in dichotic-listening studies of speech lateralization using consonant-vowel syllable stimuli. A working-memory procedure was actually used in the pioneering dichotic-listening studies by Doreen Kimura in 1960, a fact that was forgotten in later dichotic-listening studies, exclusively focusing on the perceptual aspects of speech sound lateralization. Capitalizing on the original Kimura (1961a, 1961b) studies, we hypothesized that an increase in working-memory load leads to an amplified right-ear advantage (REA) in the dichotic-listening task. A total of 30 participants completed a dichotic-listening task including three working-memory load conditions, each consisting of trials of 3, 4, and 5 dichotically presented letter pairs. Results confirmed an enhanced REA as working-memory load increased. This right-ear effect increased significantly from 3 to 4 stimulus pairs and leveled off with the 5th pair. In addition, the assumption was tested that, within a single load condition, the REA appears mainly in late serial input positions. A detailed analysis of the results revealed that only late positions contributed to the overall REA. However, the highest load condition (5 letter pairs) also produced significant ear differences in the early part of the input position curve. The mechanisms likely to be responsible for these results are discussed in terms of top-down and bottom-up processes in hemispheric asymmetry.

Listening Comprehension Strategies: A Review of the Literature

Science.gov (United States)

Berne, Jane E.

2004-01-01

Numerous studies related to listening comprehension strategies have been published in the past two decades. The present study seeks to build upon two previous reviews of listening comprehension strategies research. Of particular interest in this review are studies dealing with the types of cues used by listeners, the sequence of listening,…

Classroom listening assessment: strategies for speech-language pathologists.

Science.gov (United States)

Johnson, Cheryl DeConde

2012-11-01

Emphasis on classroom listening has gained importance for all children and especially for those with hearing loss and special listening needs. The rationale can be supported from trends in educational placements, the Response to Intervention initiative, student performance and accountability, the role of audition in reading, and improvement in hearing technologies. Speech-language pathologists have an instrumental role advocating for the accommodations that are necessary for effective listening for these children in school. To identify individual listening needs and make relevant recommendations for accommodations, a classroom listening assessment is suggested. Components of the classroom listening assessment include observation, behavioral assessment, self-assessment, and classroom acoustics measurements. Together, with a strong rationale, the results can be used to implement a plan that results in effective classroom listening for these children. Thieme Medical Publishers 333 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10001, USA.

The Effects of using VoiceThread on Students’ Listening Comprehension and Attitudes Toward using VoiceThread

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Oraib Mango

2017-06-01

Full Text Available The current study investigated the effects of the use of VoiceThread (VT on the listening comprehension and attitudes of college students of Arabic as a foreign language. Thirty-five students in two 10-week classes of beginning Arabic participated in this study. The instruction in both classes was the same except that, for one group, the instruction was supplemented by the use of VT to enhance listening and speaking skills during the 10 weeks. Upon completion of the class, students using VT showed superior listening skills. Moreover, an Attitude and Engagement survey showed that the students enjoyed using VT and viewed it as a valuable tool that enhanced their language learning.

MP3 player listening habits of 17 to 23 year old university students.

Science.gov (United States)

McNeill, Kylie; Keith, Stephen E; Feder, Katya; Konkle, Anne T M; Michaud, David S

2010-08-01

This study evaluated the potential risk to hearing associated with the use of portable digital audio players. Twenty-eight university students (12 males, 16 females; aged 17-23) completed a 49-item questionnaire assessing user listening habits and subjective measures of hearing health. Sound level measurements of participants' self-identified typical and 'worst case' volume levels were taken in different classrooms with background sound levels between 43 and 52 dBA. The median frequency and duration of use was 2 h per day, 6.5 days a week. The median sound levels and interquartile ranges (IQR) at typical and 'worst case' volume settings were 71 dBA (IQR=12) and 79 dBA (IQR=9), respectively. When typical sound levels were considered with self-reported duration of daily use, none of the participants surpassed Leq(8) 85 dBA. On the questionnaire, 19 students reported experiencing at least one symptom of possible noise-induced hearing loss. Significant differences in MP3 user listening patterns were found between respondents who had experienced tinnitus and those who had not. The findings add to a growing body of literature that collectively supports a need for further research investigating MP3 player user listening habits in order to assess their potential risk to hearing health.

Impacts of Captioned Movies on Listening Comprehension

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Abusaied Janfaza

2014-04-01

Full Text Available With the advent of technology, the implication of authentic multimedia-based teaching materials are using widely in language classrooms. Technology can be in service of teaching different skills such as listening, reading, speaking and writing. Among these skills listening comprehension is a skill in which the learners have problems to master. Regarding this issue, utilizing captions for the education purposes has been a good motivation for conducting some research on the effects of captions of listening skills. However, it seems that there is a gap in the literature whether to use captioned movies in the classroom and whether they are effective in improving listening comprehension. Many studies have been conducted on this issue. However, their findings are conclusive. While some studies refer to the effectiveness of using captions, others revel that they are not so effective for improving the learner’s language skills. Hence, the present study is a review of the effects of captioned movies on the improvement of listening skill. In this case, the findings of this study can clarify the role of using captioned movies in improving the listening skill Keywords: captioned movie, technology, listening comprehension, instruction

Tullis Rennie's Muscle Memory: Listening to the Act of Listening

OpenAIRE

Waters, Simon

2015-01-01

This paper explores a recent, broadly 'electroacoustic', fixed medium composition by Tullis Rennie, which uses his background in ethnographic fieldwork to explore (in this case through auto-ethnography) modes of listening, and the role of technologies in mediating this listening. Muscle Memory: A conversation about jazz, with Graham South (trumpet) (2014) begins to answer questions about how one work can comment on and analyse or critique another through its own agency as music, bringing comp...

Sound localization in noise in hearing-impaired listeners.

Science.gov (United States)

Lorenzi, C; Gatehouse, S; Lever, C

1999-06-01

The present study assesses the ability of four listeners with high-frequency, bilateral symmetrical sensorineural hearing loss to localize and detect a broadband click train in the frontal-horizontal plane, in quiet and in the presence of a white noise. The speaker array and stimuli are identical to those described by Lorenzi et al. (in press). The results show that: (1) localization performance is only slightly poorer in hearing-impaired listeners than in normal-hearing listeners when noise is at 0 deg azimuth, (2) localization performance begins to decrease at higher signal-to-noise ratios for hearing-impaired listeners than for normal-hearing listeners when noise is at +/- 90 deg azimuth, and (3) the performance of hearing-impaired listeners is less consistent when noise is at +/- 90 deg azimuth than at 0 deg azimuth. The effects of a high-frequency hearing loss were also studied by measuring the ability of normal-hearing listeners to localize the low-pass filtered version of the clicks. The data reproduce the effects of noise on three out of the four hearing-impaired listeners when noise is at 0 deg azimuth. They reproduce the effects of noise on only two out of the four hearing-impaired listeners when noise is at +/- 90 deg azimuth. The additional effects of a low-frequency hearing loss were investigated by attenuating the low-pass filtered clicks and the noise by 20 dB. The results show that attenuation does not strongly affect localization accuracy for normal-hearing listeners. Measurements of the clicks' detectability indicate that the hearing-impaired listeners who show the poorest localization accuracy also show the poorest ability to detect the clicks. The inaudibility of high frequencies, "distortions," and reduced detectability of the signal are assumed to have caused the poorer-than-normal localization accuracy for hearing-impaired listeners.

English for Specific Purposes: Podcasts for Listening Skills

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Galina Kavaliauskienė

2011-04-01

Full Text Available The most needed ability in everyday communication is skills of listening. Ability to follow a speaker in a foreign language and respond appropriately needs to be taught like all other language skills. A novel approach to perfecting listening skills has emerged due to audio publishing online. It is known as “podcasting” and has become very popular because it offers language learners extra listening practice both inside and outside the classroom. Moreover, podcasting as online communication technology is a new way to inspire learning: it provides an exciting way for students and educators to explore and discover educational content. However, the applicability of podcasting to teaching English needs researching.This paper addresses research into learners’ perceptions of online listening to podcasts, self-evaluation of one’s performance in individual listening practice and reflections on practical ways of improving skills of listening and developing listening competence. Some implications of research are suggested including a blended learning, i.e. combination of multiple approaches to learning by harmonizing online listening with classroom audition activities in teaching / learning English for Specific Purposes.

Making Listening Instruction Meaningful: A Literature Review

Science.gov (United States)

Todd, Jennifer R.; Mishra, Jennifer

2013-01-01

Listening to, analyzing, and describing music, is perhaps the most difficult standard to present effectively in allotted classroom time. The purpose of this literature review is to better understand what constitutes effective listening instruction by examining students' listening practices, receptiveness, attentiveness, and activities that lead to…

Observations on Listener Responses from Multiple Perspectives

NARCIS (Netherlands)

de Kok, I.A.; Heylen, Dirk K.J.

In this paper we present three studies that investigate the individual differences in nonverbal listening behavior. Besides collecting a corpus of listener responses, we asked people to watch a video of a speaker and indicate where they would produce a listener response. Also we asked people to

Assessing the Depth and Breadth of Vocabulary Knowledge with Listening Comprehension

Science.gov (United States)

Teng, Feng

2014-01-01

This study was inspired by Qian (1999) and Staehr (2009) and researched 88 Chinese learners who had already passed the College English Test 4 (CET). These learners volunteered to participate in the study regarding the depth and breadth of vocabulary knowledge and its relationship with listening comprehension, which was assessed by analyzing the…

Teach More Strategies in EFL College Listening Classroom

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Wen-sheng

2007-01-01

Listening is very important. Conversations will take place only when we can understand what our interlocutor says; listening is also an important input. Yet, many of my students got frustrated in listening. Being a teacher, I tried to rethink about what I did in my listening classes and did some literature review. As a result, I found that there…

Non-listening and self centered leadership--relationships to socioeconomic conditions and employee mental health.

Science.gov (United States)

Theorell, Töres; Nyberg, Anna; Leineweber, Constanze; Magnusson Hanson, Linda L; Oxenstierna, Gabriel; Westerlund, Hugo

2012-01-01

The way in which leadership is experienced in different socioeconomic strata is of interest per se, as well as how it relates to employee mental health. Three waves of SLOSH (Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health, a questionnaire survey on a sample of the Swedish working population) were used, 2006, 2008 and 2010 (n = 5141). The leadership variables were: "Non-listening leadership" (one question: "Does your manager listen to you?"--four response categories), "Self centered leadership" (sum of three five-graded questions--"non-participating", "asocial" and "loner"). The socioeconomic factors were education and income. Emotional exhaustion and depressive symptoms were used as indicators of mental health. Non-listening leadership was associated with low income and low education whereas self-centered leadership showed a weaker relationship with education and no association at all with income. Both leadership variables were significantly associated with emotional exhaustion and depressive symptoms. "Self centered" as well as "non-listening" leadership in 2006 significantly predicted employee depressive symptoms in 2008 after adjustment for demographic variables. These predictions became non-significant when adjustment was made for job conditions (demands and decision latitude) in the "non-listening" leadership analyses, whereas predictions of depressive symptoms remained significant after these adjustments in the "self-centered leadership" analyses. Our results show that the leadership variables are associated with socioeconomic status and employee mental health. "Non-listening" scores were more sensitive to societal change and more strongly related to socioeconomic factors and job conditions than "self-centered" scores.

Utilizing Authentic Materials on Students’ Listening Comprehension: Does it have Any Influence?

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Resti Citra Dewi

2018-02-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of using authentic materials on EFL students’ in listening comprehension. The participants of this study was the second year students of Junior High School in Indonesia, 2014/2015 academic year. The population of this study consisted of five parallel classes with the total number of the students was 190 students. Purposive sampling technique was used in this study. The participants were divided into two groups, the experimental was 38 students and the control group was 38 students. This study used experimental research. The instrument used in collecting data was multiple choice test. The total items of the test was 20 items. The finding shows that t-test (5.09 was higher than t-table (2.02 with the level of significance 0.05 and the degree of freedom (df = 36. It shows that the hypothesis alternative (ha was accepted. It means that using authentic materials has influence on students’ achievement in listening comprehension.

Irrelevant speech does not interfere with serial recall in early blind listeners.

Science.gov (United States)

Kattner, Florian; Ellermeier, Wolfgang

2014-01-01

Phonological working memory is known be (a) inversely related to the duration of the items to be learned (word-length effect), and (b) impaired by the presence of irrelevant speech-like sounds (irrelevant-speech effect). As it is discussed controversially whether these memory disruptions are subject to attentional control, both effects were studied in sighted participants and in a sample of early blind individuals who are expected to be superior in selectively attending to auditory stimuli. Results show that, while performance depended on word length in both groups, irrelevant speech interfered with recall only in the sighted group, but not in blind participants. This suggests that blind listeners may be able to effectively prevent irrelevant sound from being encoded in the phonological store, presumably due to superior auditory processing. The occurrence of a word-length effect, however, implies that blind and sighted listeners are utilizing the same phonological rehearsal mechanism in order to maintain information in the phonological store.

Effects of Cooperative Learning Method on the Development of Listening Comprehension and Listening Skills

Science.gov (United States)

Kirbas, Abdulkadir

2017-01-01

In this study, the effect of the learning together technique, which is one of the cooperative learning methods, on the development of the listening comprehension and listening skills of the secondary school eighth grade students was investigated. Regarding the purpose of the research, experimental and control groups consisting of 75 students from,…

Reading and listening comprehension and their relation to inattention and hyperactivity.

Science.gov (United States)

Cain, Kate; Bignell, Simon

2014-03-01

Children with diagnoses of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) frequently have reading problems. To date, it is not clear whether poor reading is associated with both inattention and hyperactivity and also whether poor reading comprehension is the result of poor word reading skills or more general language comprehension weaknesses. We report two studies to examine how reading and listening comprehension skills are related to inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity. Separate groups of 7- to 11-year-olds participated in each study. In both studies, we used teacher ratings of inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity to identify three groups at risk of ADHD: poor attention, high hyperactivity, poor attention and high hyperactivity, and also same-age controls. In Study 1, we explored how inattention and hyperactivity predicted reading after controlling for non-verbal IQ and vocabulary. In Study 2, we compared listening and reading comprehension in these groups. Poor attention was related to poor reading comprehension, although the relation was partially mediated by word reading skill (Study 1). Groups with high hyperactivity had weak listening comprehension relative to reading comprehension (Study 2). These results indicate that the reading comprehension problems of children with attention difficulties are related to poor word reading and that listening comprehension is particularly vulnerable in children at risk of ADHD. © 2013 The British Psychological Society.

The Mediating Effect of Listening Metacognitive Awareness between Test-Taking Motivation and Listening Test Score: An Expectancy-Value Theory Approach

OpenAIRE

Xu, Jian

2017-01-01

The present study investigated test-taking motivation in L2 listening testing context by applying Expectancy-Value Theory as the framework. Specifically, this study was intended to examine the complex relationships among expectancy, importance, interest, listening anxiety, listening metacognitive awareness, and listening test score using data from a large-scale and high-stakes language test among Chinese first-year undergraduates. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the mediating...

Modeling auditory perception of individual hearing-impaired listeners

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jepsen, Morten Løve; Dau, Torsten

showed that, in most cases, the reduced or absent cochlear compression, associated with outer hair-cell loss, quantitatively accounts for broadened auditory filters, while a combination of reduced compression and reduced inner hair-cell function accounts for decreased sensitivity and slower recovery from...... selectivity. Three groups of listeners were considered: (a) normal hearing listeners; (b) listeners with a mild-to-moderate sensorineural hearing loss; and (c) listeners with a severe sensorineural hearing loss. A fixed set of model parameters were derived for each hearing-impaired listener. The simulations...

Balancing Openness and Interpretation in Active Listening

Science.gov (United States)

Topornycky, Joseph; Golparian, Shaya

2016-01-01

Active listening is an important communication skill in a variety of disciplines and professions, including the profession of Educational Development. In our roles as educational developers, we engage in a variety of processes, all of which rely heavily on the practice of active listening. Emerging strategies of active listening praxis have…

The use of auditory and visual context in speech perception by listeners with normal hearing and listeners with cochlear implants

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Matthew eWinn

2013-11-01

Full Text Available There is a wide range of acoustic and visual variability across different talkers and different speaking contexts. Listeners with normal hearing accommodate that variability in ways that facilitate efficient perception, but it is not known whether listeners with cochlear implants can do the same. In this study, listeners with normal hearing (NH and listeners with cochlear implants (CIs were tested for accommodation to auditory and visual phonetic contexts created by gender-driven speech differences as well as vowel coarticulation and lip rounding in both consonants and vowels. Accommodation was measured as the shifting of perceptual boundaries between /s/ and /ʃ/ sounds in various contexts, as modeled by mixed-effects logistic regression. Owing to the spectral contrasts thought to underlie these context effects, CI listeners were predicted to perform poorly, but showed considerable success. Listeners with cochlear implants not only showed sensitivity to auditory cues to gender, they were also able to use visual cues to gender (i.e. faces as a supplement or proxy for information in the acoustic domain, in a pattern that was not observed for listeners with normal hearing. Spectrally-degraded stimuli heard by listeners with normal hearing generally did not elicit strong context effects, underscoring the limitations of noise vocoders and/or the importance of experience with electric hearing. Visual cues for consonant lip rounding and vowel lip rounding were perceived in a manner consistent with coarticulation and were generally used more heavily by listeners with CIs. Results suggest that listeners with cochlear implants are able to accommodate various sources of acoustic variability either by attending to appropriate acoustic cues or by inferring them via the visual signal.

Attention, memory, and auditory processing in 10- to 15-year-old children with listening difficulties.

Science.gov (United States)

Sharma, Mridula; Dhamani, Imran; Leung, Johahn; Carlile, Simon

2014-12-01

The aim of this study was to examine attention, memory, and auditory processing in children with reported listening difficulty in noise (LDN) despite having clinically normal hearing. Twenty-one children with LDN and 15 children with no listening concerns (controls) participated. The clinically normed auditory processing tests included the Frequency/Pitch Pattern Test (FPT; Musiek, 2002), the Dichotic Digits Test (Musiek, 1983), the Listening in Spatialized Noise-Sentences (LiSN-S) test (Dillon, Cameron, Glyde, Wilson, & Tomlin, 2012), gap detection in noise (Baker, Jayewardene, Sayle, & Saeed, 2008), and masking level difference (MLD; Wilson, Moncrieff, Townsend, & Pillion, 2003). Also included were research-based psychoacoustic tasks, such as auditory stream segregation, localization, sinusoidal amplitude modulation (SAM), and fine structure perception. All were also evaluated on attention and memory test batteries. The LDN group was significantly slower switching their auditory attention and had poorer inhibitory control. Additionally, the group mean results showed significantly poorer performance on FPT, MLD, 4-Hz SAM, and memory tests. Close inspection of the individual data revealed that only 5 participants (out of 21) in the LDN group showed significantly poor performance on FPT compared with clinical norms. Further testing revealed the frequency discrimination of these 5 children to be significantly impaired. Thus, the LDN group showed deficits in attention switching and inhibitory control, whereas only a subset of these participants demonstrated an additional frequency resolution deficit.

The Development of Individual Learners in an L2 Listening Strategies Course

Science.gov (United States)

Yeldham, Michael; Gruba, Paul

2016-01-01

This study examined the idiosyncratic development of second language (L2) learners in a listening strategies course. The progress of four Taiwanese EFL learners was examined longitudinally through a variety of quantitative and qualitative techniques as the learners participated in a course combining direct instruction of strategies with their…

Cognitive Correlates of Listening Comprehension

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Young-Suk; Phillips, Beth

2014-01-01

In an effort to understand cognitive foundations of oral language comprehension (i.e., listening comprehension), we examined how inhibitory control, theory of mind, and comprehension monitoring are uniquely related to listening comprehension over and above vocabulary and age. A total of 156 children in kindergarten and first grade from…

Neural correlates of intentional switching from ternary to binary meter in a musical hemiola pattern.

Science.gov (United States)

Fujioka, Takako; Fidali, Brian C; Ross, Bernhard

2014-01-01

Musical rhythms are often perceived and interpreted within a metrical framework that integrates timing information hierarchically based on interval ratios. Endogenous timing processes facilitate this metrical integration and allow us using the sensory context for predicting when an expected sensory event will happen ("predictive timing"). Previously, we showed that listening to metronomes and subjectively imagining the two different meters of march and waltz modulated the resulting auditory evoked responses in the temporal lobe and motor-related brain areas such as the motor cortex, basal ganglia, and cerebellum. Here we further explored the intentional transitions between the two metrical contexts, known as hemiola in the Western classical music dating back to the sixteenth century. We examined MEG from 12 musicians while they repeatedly listened to a sequence of 12 unaccented clicks with an interval of 390 ms, and tapped to them with the right hand according to a 3 + 3 + 2 + 2 + 2 hemiola accent pattern. While participants listened to the same metronome sequence and imagined the accents, their pattern of brain responses significantly changed just before the "pivot" point of metric transition from ternary to binary meter. Until 100 ms before the pivot point, brain activities were more similar to those in the simple ternary meter than those in the simple binary meter, but the pattern was reversed afterwards. A similar transition was also observed at the downbeat after the pivot. Brain areas related to the metric transition were identified from source reconstruction of the MEG using a beamformer and included auditory cortices, sensorimotor and premotor cortices, cerebellum, inferior/middle frontal gyrus, parahippocampal gyrus, inferior parietal lobule, cingulate cortex, and precuneus. The results strongly support that predictive timing processes related to auditory-motor, fronto-parietal, and medial limbic systems underlie metrical representation and its transitions.

Production of lexical stress in non-native speakers of American English: kinematic correlates of stress and transfer.

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Chakraborty, Rahul; Goffman, Lisa

2011-06-01

To assess the influence of second language (L2) proficiency on production characteristics of rhythmic sequences in the L1 (Bengali) and L2 (English), with emphasis on linguistic transfer. One goal was to examine, using kinematic evidence, how L2 proficiency influences the production of iambic and trochaic words, focusing on temporal and spatial aspects of prosody. A second goal was to assess whether prosodic structure influences judgment of foreign accent. Twenty Bengali-English bilingual individuals, 10 with low proficiency in English and 10 with high proficiency in English, and 10 monolingual English speakers, participated. Lip and jaw movements were recorded while the bilingual participants produced Bengali and English words embedded in sentences. Lower lip movement amplitude and duration were measured in trochaic and iambic words. Six native English listeners judged the nativeness of the bilingual speakers. Evidence of L1-L2 transfer was observed through duration but not amplitude cues. More proficient L2 speakers varied duration to mark iambic stress. Perceptually, the high-proficiency group received relatively higher native-like accent ratings. Trochees were judged as more native than iambs. Even in the face of L1-L2 lexical stress transfer, nonnative speakers demonstrated knowledge of prosodic contrasts. Movement duration appears to be more amenable than amplitude to modifications.

Music Perception and Appraisal: Cochlear Implant Users and Simulated CI Listening

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Wright, Rose; Uchanski, Rosalie M.

2012-01-01

Background The inability to hear music well may contribute to decreased quality of life for cochlear implant (CI) users. Researchers have reported recently on the generally poor ability of CI users’ to perceive music, and a few researchers have reported on the enjoyment of music by CI users. However, the relation between music perception skills and music enjoyment is much less explored. Only one study has attempted to predict CI users’ enjoyment and perception of music from the users’ demographic variables and other perceptual skills (Gfeller et al., 2008). Gfeller’s results yielded different predictive relationships for music perception and music enjoyment, and the relationships were weak, at best. Purpose The first goal of this study is to clarify the nature and relationship between music perception skills and musical enjoyment for CI users, by employing a battery of music tests. The second goal is to determine whether normal hearing (NH) subjects, listening with a CI-simulation, can be used as a model to represent actual CI users for either music enjoyment ratings or music perception tasks. Research Design A prospective, cross-sectional observational study. Original music stimuli (unprocessed) were presented to CI users, and music stimuli processed with CI-simulation software were presented to twenty NH listeners (CIsim). As a control, original music stimuli were also presented to five other NH listeners. All listeners appraised twenty-four musical excerpts, performed music perception tests, and filled out a musical background questionnaire. Music perception tests were the Appreciation of Music in Cochlear Implantees (AMICI), Montreal Battery for Evaluation of Amusia (MBEA), Melodic Contour Identification (MCI), and University of Washington Clinical Assessment of Music Perception (UW-CAMP). Study Sample Twenty-five NH adults (22 – 56 years old), recruited from the local and research communities, participated in the study. Ten adult CI users (46 – 80

The Impact of Listening to Music During a High-Intensity Exercise Endurance Test in People With COPD.

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Lee, Annemarie L; Dolmage, Thomas E; Rhim, Matthew; Goldstein, Roger S; Brooks, Dina

2018-05-01

In people with COPD, dyspnea is the primary symptom limiting exercise tolerance. One approach to reducing dyspnea during exercise is through music listening. A constant speed endurance test reflects a high-intensity aerobic exercise training session, but whether listening to music affects endurance time is unknown. This study aimed to determine the effects of listening to music during a constant speed endurance test in COPD. Participants with COPD completed two endurance walk tests, one with and one without listening to self-selected music throughout the test. The primary outcome was the difference in endurance time between the two conditions. Heart rate, percutaneous oxygen saturation, dyspnea, and rate of perceived exertion were measured before and after each test. Nineteen participants (mean [SD]: age, 71 [8] years; FEV 1 , 47 [19] % predicted) completed the study. Endurance time was greater (1.10 [95% CI, 0.41-1.78] min) while listening to music (7.0 [3.1] min) than without (5.9 [2.6] min), and reduced end-test dyspnea (1.0 [95% CI, -2.80 to -1.80] units) (with music, 4.6 [1.7] units; vs without music, 5.6 [1.4] units, respectively). There was not a significant difference in heart rate, percutaneous oxygen saturation, or leg fatigue. There were no adverse events under either condition. In COPD, dyspnea was less while listening to music and was accompanied by an increased tolerance of high-intensity exercise demonstrated by greater endurance time. Practically, the effect was modest but may represent an aid for exercise training of these patients. Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry; No. ACTRN12617001217392. Copyright © 2017 American College of Chest Physicians. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Listening Comprehension: Approach, Design, Procedure.

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Richards, Jack C.

1983-01-01

Three dimensions in the teaching of listening comprehension are outlined: (1) a theory is presented that takes account of the cognitive processes used (approach); (2) listeners' needs are analyzed and a taxonomy of microskills and objectives for teaching them are proposed (design); and (3) classroom exercises and activities are suggested…

Constraints on the Transfer of Perceptual Learning in Accented Speech

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Eisner, Frank; Melinger, Alissa; Weber, Andrea

2013-01-01

The perception of speech sounds can be re-tuned through a mechanism of lexically driven perceptual learning after exposure to instances of atypical speech production. This study asked whether this re-tuning is sensitive to the position of the atypical sound within the word. We investigated perceptual learning using English voiced stop consonants, which are commonly devoiced in word-final position by Dutch learners of English. After exposure to a Dutch learner’s productions of devoiced stops in word-final position (but not in any other positions), British English (BE) listeners showed evidence of perceptual learning in a subsequent cross-modal priming task, where auditory primes with devoiced final stops (e.g., “seed”, pronounced [si:th]), facilitated recognition of visual targets with voiced final stops (e.g., SEED). In Experiment 1, this learning effect generalized to test pairs where the critical contrast was in word-initial position, e.g., auditory primes such as “town” facilitated recognition of visual targets like DOWN. Control listeners, who had not heard any stops by the speaker during exposure, showed no learning effects. The generalization to word-initial position did not occur when participants had also heard correctly voiced, word-initial stops during exposure (Experiment 2), and when the speaker was a native BE speaker who mimicked the word-final devoicing (Experiment 3). The readiness of the perceptual system to generalize a previously learned adjustment to other positions within the word thus appears to be modulated by distributional properties of the speech input, as well as by the perceived sociophonetic characteristics of the speaker. The results suggest that the transfer of pre-lexical perceptual adjustments that occur through lexically driven learning can be affected by a combination of acoustic, phonological, and sociophonetic factors. PMID:23554598

Music perception and appraisal: cochlear implant users and simulated cochlear implant listening.

Science.gov (United States)

Wright, Rose; Uchanski, Rosalie M

2012-05-01

The inability to hear music well may contribute to decreased quality of life for cochlear implant (CI) users. Researchers have reported recently on the generally poor ability of CI users to perceive music, and a few researchers have reported on the enjoyment of music by CI users. However, the relation between music perception skills and music enjoyment is much less explored. Only one study has attempted to predict CI users' enjoyment and perception of music from the users' demographic variables and other perceptual skills (Gfeller et al, 2008). Gfeller's results yielded different predictive relationships for music perception and music enjoyment, and the relationships were weak, at best. The first goal of this study is to clarify the nature and relationship between music perception skills and musical enjoyment for CI users, by employing a battery of music tests. The second goal is to determine whether normal hearing (NH) subjects, listening with a CI simulation, can be used as a model to represent actual CI users for either music enjoyment ratings or music perception tasks. A prospective, cross-sectional observational study. Original music stimuli (unprocessed) were presented to CI users, and music stimuli processed with CI-simulation software were presented to 20 NH listeners (CIsim). As a control, original music stimuli were also presented to five other NH listeners. All listeners appraised 24 musical excerpts, performed music perception tests, and filled out a musical background questionnaire. Music perception tests were the Appreciation of Music in Cochlear Implantees (AMICI), Montreal Battery for Evaluation of Amusia (MBEA), Melodic Contour Identification (MCI), and University of Washington Clinical Assessment of Music Perception (UW-CAMP). Twenty-five NH adults (22-56 yr old), recruited from the local and research communities, participated in the study. Ten adult CI users (46-80 yr old), recruited from the patient population of the local adult cochlear implant

Active Listening in Peer Interviews: The Influence of Message Paraphrasing on Perceptions of Listening Skill

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Weger, Harry, Jr.; Castle, Gina R.; Emmett, Melissa C.

2010-01-01

Perhaps no communication skill is identified as regularly as active listening in training programs across a variety of disciplines and activities. Yet little empirical research has examined specific elements of active listening responses in terms of their effectiveness in achieving desired interpersonal outcomes. This study reports an experiment…

Fluctuating confidence: the dynamic consequences of true/false affirmatives and denials on how a listener appraises their personal past.

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Davis, Jolee; Bayantemur, Sharon Y; Seecharan, Sasha; Unger, Leslie D; Hellgren, Johanna; Stone, Charles B

2018-08-01

The present study examined the mnemonic consequences of true/false denials and affirmatives on how a listener appraises their personal past. To this end, participants (listeners) rated the extent to which they were confident certain events occurred during their childhood. They rated these events both before and after a confederate (speaker) denied or affirmed the occurrence of four different childhood events each, for a total of eight "rehearsed" events. For each set (denials and affirmatives) of events, half were true and half were false. In turn, this created four types of events (two each): true denials, true affirmatives, false denials, and false affirmatives. Additionally, half of the participants were told that the speaker was provided independent information about the veracity of the event's occurrence ("expert" condition). Overall, listeners were less confident in the occurrence of false denial events, but more so when they believed the speaker to be more knowledgeable of the listeners memories, more confident in false affirmative events and, counter intuitively, more confident in the occurrence of true denial events. These results underscore the importance of a nuanced approach to the mnemonic consequences of true and false denials and affirmations in the course of social interactions.

Beyond the Language: Listener Comments on Extra-Linguistic Cues in Perception Tasks

Science.gov (United States)

Gnevsheva, Ksenia

2016-01-01

We know little about what raters rely on when participating in accentedness perception tasks as their qualitative comments are rarely scrutinised. At the same time, we know that (assumed) social information influences listener behaviour. This study investigates rater attitudes to and stereotypes about speakers of different varieties of English,…

Masking and Partial Masking in Listeners with a High-Frequency Hearing Loss

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Smits, J.T.S.; Duifhuis, H.

1982-01-01

3 listeners with sensorineural hearing loss ranging from moderate to moderate-severe starting at frequencies higher than 1 kHz participated in two masking experiments and a partial masking experiment. In the first masking experiment, fM = 1 kHz and LM = 50 dB SPL, higher than normal masked

Optimizing Visually-Assisted Listening Comprehension

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Kashani, Ahmad Sabouri; Sajjadi, Samad; Sohrabi, Mohammad Reza; Younespour, Shima

2011-01-01

The fact that visual aids such as pictures or graphs can lead to greater comprehension by language learners has been well established. Nonetheless, the order of presenting visuals to listeners is left unattended. This study examined listening comprehension from a strategy of introducing visual information, either prior to or during an audio…

A virtual speaker in noisy classroom conditions: supporting or disrupting children's listening comprehension?

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Nirme, Jens; Haake, Magnus; Lyberg Åhlander, Viveka; Brännström, Jonas; Sahlén, Birgitta

2018-04-05

Seeing a speaker's face facilitates speech recognition, particularly under noisy conditions. Evidence for how it might affect comprehension of the content of the speech is more sparse. We investigated how children's listening comprehension is affected by multi-talker babble noise, with or without presentation of a digitally animated virtual speaker, and whether successful comprehension is related to performance on a test of executive functioning. We performed a mixed-design experiment with 55 (34 female) participants (8- to 9-year-olds), recruited from Swedish elementary schools. The children were presented with four different narratives, each in one of four conditions: audio-only presentation in a quiet setting, audio-only presentation in noisy setting, audio-visual presentation in a quiet setting, and audio-visual presentation in a noisy setting. After each narrative, the children answered questions on the content and rated their perceived listening effort. Finally, they performed a test of executive functioning. We found significantly fewer correct answers to explicit content questions after listening in noise. This negative effect was only mitigated to a marginally significant degree by audio-visual presentation. Strong executive function only predicted more correct answers in quiet settings. Altogether, our results are inconclusive regarding how seeing a virtual speaker affects listening comprehension. We discuss how methodological adjustments, including modifications to our virtual speaker, can be used to discriminate between possible explanations to our results and contribute to understanding the listening conditions children face in a typical classroom.

The intelligibility of Chinese-accented English to Korean and American students at a U.S. university

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hardman, Jocelyn

2017-01-01

This study investigated the intelligibility of Chinese and American graduate students to their Korean and American peers. A psycholinguistic word-recognition-in-noise study investigated the effects on intelligibility of speakers’ L1 and segmental pronunciation accuracy and how this varied...... international and American university students should receive the linguistic perception training necessary to accommodate the range of accent diversity that has become an integral part of academia today.  ...

"Can You Repeat That?" Teaching Active Listening in Management Education

Science.gov (United States)

Spataro, Sandra E.; Bloch, Janel

2018-01-01

Listening is a critical communication skill and therefore an essential element of management education. "Active" listening surpasses passive listening or simple hearing to establish a deeper connection between speaker and listener, as the listener gives the speaker full attention via inquiry, reflection, respect, and empathy. This…

An investigation of the Android/BadAccents malware which exploits a new Android tapjacking attack

OpenAIRE

Rasthofer, Siegfried; Asrar, Irfan; Huber, Stephan; Bodden, Eric

2015-01-01

We report on a new threat campaign, underway in Korea, which infected around 20,000 Android users within two months. The campaign attacked mobile users with malicious applications spread via different channels, such as email attachments or SMS spam. A detailed investigation of the Android malware resulted in the identification of a new Android malware family Android/BadAccents. The family represents current state-of-the-art in mobile malware development for banking trojans. In this paper, we ...

Listening to Religious Music and Mental Health in Later Life.

Science.gov (United States)

Bradshaw, Matt; Ellison, Christopher G; Fang, Qijuan; Mueller, Collin

2015-12-01

Research has linked several aspects of religion--including service attendance, prayer, meditation, religious coping strategies, congregational support systems, and relations with God, among others--with positive mental health outcomes among older U.S. adults. This study examines a neglected dimension of religious life: listening to religious music. Two waves of nationally representative data on older U.S. adults were analyzed (n = 1,024). Findings suggest that the frequency of listening to religious music is associated with a decrease in death anxiety and increases in life satisfaction, self-esteem, and a sense of control across the 2 waves of data. In addition, the frequency of listening to gospel music (a specific type of religious music) is associated with a decrease in death anxiety and an increase in a sense of control. These associations are similar for blacks and whites, women and men, and low- and high-socioeconomic status individuals. Religion is an important socioemotional resource that has been linked with desirable mental health outcomes among older U.S. adults. This study shows that listening to religious music may promote psychological well-being in later life. Given that religious music is available to most individuals--even those with health problems or physical limitations that might preclude participation in more formal aspects of religious life--it might be a valuable resource for promoting mental health later in the life course. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

The effects of previewing questions, repetition of input, and topic preparation on listening comprehension of Iranian EFL learners

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Afsar Rouhi

2014-07-01

Full Text Available In this study, an attempt was made to examine the effects of previewing questions, repetition of input, and topic preparation on listening comprehension of Iranian learners of English. The study was conducted with 104 high school students in 3 experimental and one control groups. The participants in the previewing questions group read the comprehension questions before hearing the text and answering the questions. The topic preparation group took advantage of topic-related texts in Persian followed by previewing questions; then they listened to the texts and answered the questions. The repetition of input group had two hearings with previewing before each hearing that preceded answering the comprehension questions. The control group, however, only had one hearing before answering the questions. The results obtained from data analysis showed that the topic preparation group performed better than the other participating groups. The repetition group, in turn, did better than the previewing group. There was, however, no statistically significant difference between the previewing and repetition groups. Based on the results obtained, it can be argued that providing and/or activating background knowledge and repeating a listening task might facilitate listening comprehension in EFL classroom settings. The findings and pedagogical implications of the study are discussed in detail.

ACADIA 2010 konference: listener

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ramsgaard Thomsen, Mette; Karmon, Ayelet

2010-01-01

This paper presents the thinking and making of the architectural research probe Listener. Developed as an interdisciplinary collaboration between textile design and architecture, Listener explores how information based fabrication technologies are challenging the material practices of architecture....... The paper investigates how textile design can be understood as a model for architectural production providing new strategies for material specification and allowing the thinking of material as inherently variegated and performative. The paper traces the two fold information based strategies present...

Application of Metacognitive Strategy to Primary Listening Teaching

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Zheng, Jie

2017-12-01

It is of vital importance that our students should be taught to listen effectively and critically. This essay focuses the metacognitive strategy in listening and an empirical study of the application of metacognitive strategy to primary listening teaching is made.

Listening to music primes space: pianists, but not novices, simulate heard actions.

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Taylor, J Eric T; Witt, Jessica K

2015-03-01

Musicians sometimes report twitching in their fingers or hands while listening to music. This anecdote could be indicative of a tendency for auditory-motor co-representation in musicians. Here, we describe two studies showing that pianists (Experiment 1), but not novices (Experiment 2) automatically generate spatial representations that correspond to learned musical actions while listening to music. Participants made one-handed movements to the left or right from a central location in response to visual stimuli while listening to task-irrelevant auditory stimuli, which were scales played on a piano. These task-irrelevant scales were either ascending (compatible with rightward movements) or descending (compatible with leftward movements). Pianists were faster to respond when the scale direction was compatible with the direction of response movement, whereas novices' movements were unaffected by the scale. These results are in agreement with existing research on action-effect coupling in musicians, which draw heavily on common coding theory. In addition, these results show how intricate auditory stimuli (ascending or descending scales) evoke coarse, domain-general spatial representations.

A Comparative Study of Authentic Listening Materials and their Simplified Versions on the Listening Comprehension and Motivation of Iranian EFL Learners

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Hossein Vossoughi

2010-11-01

Full Text Available The present study was an attempt, to empirically investigate if there was any significant difference between authentic listening materials and their simplified version in terms of the listening comprehension of Iranian EFL learners. To this end, two groups of thirty subjects were chosen. One group received authentic listening materials and the other group received the same topic in simplified version through ten sessions. The subjects studied Top Notch Book, level 3. The listening parts were followed with seven listening comprehension questions to assess the listening comprehension of the subjects. Then, at the end of the course, the listening comprehension scores of the two groups were compared by a T-Test. The result showed that simplified demonstration of materials had a benefit over the use of authentic version. A questionnaire was also given to the subjects at the beginning and at the end of the course to find out their motivation toward using authentic or simplified materials. The result indicated that there was no significant difference between two groups in terms of motivation.

Listening in the Language Arts

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Ediger, Marlow

2015-01-01

The process of acquiring language is often depicted as a tiered process of oral development: listening and speaking; and, literacy development: reading, and writing. As infants we first learn language by listening, then speaking. That is, regardless of culture, or dialect we are first immersed in language in this oral context. It is only after one…

A Pilot Study: The Effect of Singing and Non-Singing--Instructional Strategies on Harmonic Listening Skills

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Gonzales, Cynthia I.; Brinckmeyer, Lynn; Beckman, Amy A.

2012-01-01

The purpose of this investigation is to examine the effects of singing and non-singing experiences when students develop harmonic listening skills. Participants were children and adolescents who participate in a community youth choir (N = 21). Ages ranged from 9-16 years. The subjects were organized into four separate groups. All subjects attended…

Krytyczne myślenie a krytyczne słuchanie (przyczynek do dydaktyki filozofii [Critical thinking and Critical listening (A Contribution to the didactic of philosophy

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Krystyna Górniak-Kocikowska

2014-03-01

Full Text Available This text focuses on neglect in the area of critical listening education, using educa- tion in the United States as an example. Critical listening is a skill indispensable for, among others: critical thinking, communication-in-dialogue, and also for rational participation in institutions of a democratic society. The didactic of philosophy could take upon itself the initiation in critical listening. However, this is not the case. One of the reasons for this state of affairs seems to be the lack of a coherent philosophical theory of critical listening.

Cognitive Load and Listening Effort: Concepts and Age-Related Considerations.

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Lemke, Ulrike; Besser, Jana

2016-01-01

Listening effort has been recognized as an important dimension of everyday listening, especially with regard to the comprehension of spoken language. At constant levels of comprehension performance, the level of effort exerted and perceived during listening can differ considerably across listeners and situations. In this article, listening effort is used as an umbrella term for two different types of effort that can arise during listening. One of these types is processing effort, which is used to denote the utilization of "extra" mental processing resources in listening conditions that are adverse for an individual. A conceptual description is introduced how processing effort could be defined in terms of situational influences, the listener's auditory and cognitive resources, and the listener's personal state. Also, the proposed relationship between processing effort and subjectively perceived listening effort is discussed. Notably, previous research has shown that the availability of mental resources, as well as the ability to use them efficiently, changes over the course of adult aging. These common age-related changes in cognitive abilities and their neurocognitive organization are discussed in the context of the presented concept, especially regarding situations in which listening effort may be increased for older people.

HELPING ESL STUDENTS BECOME MOTIVATED LISTENER : USING FILMS TO DEVELOP LEARNERS’ MOTIVATION IN LISTENING CLASSROOM

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rahmawati Sukmaningrum

2017-04-01

Full Text Available This article is based on an experiments conducted within 5 classes of ESL Listening classrooms in IKIP PGRI Semarang. It takes a very broad look at some theories relating to language learning (especially in listening skill and motivation. Listening is a receptive skill, and receptive skills give way to productive skills. If we have our students produce something, the teaching will be more communicative. Lack of sociocultural, factual, and contextual knowledge of the target language can present an obstacle to listening comprehension and hence decrease students’ motivation to learn. In order to teach listening skills, a teacher should firstly state the difficulties, find the solution to overcome the difficulties and then help the students to maintain their motivation in the classroom. The article then illustrates the possible solutions with a practical example of how movies may be employed in the classroom in a manner which both facilitates language learning and further encourages students’ motivation. In conducting the experiment, four steps were taken with each purposive reason. The activities given stimulated learners with a clear goal that is achievable; there are no right or wrong answers, as long as the script fits the scene. Learners are encouraged to use the linguistic tools they have to solve an immediate problem/question. The activities also practice both extensive and intensive listening skills of the learners and allow them to use the non-verbal clues which make video such a rich medium for language learning. In this case, the group has expressed an interest in watching movies in English. The teacher's task is to manipulate this enthusiasm in a way that develops a positive attitude towards language learning. The challenge is obvious; if learners can tackle tasks related to a full-length movie then their confidence and self-esteem will be raised.

Listen to Me Listen to You: A Step-By-Step Guide to Communication Skills Training

Science.gov (United States)

Kotzman, Mandy; Kotzman, Anne

2008-01-01

This step-by-step guide is a companion to the popular "Listen to Me, Listen to You: A Practical Guide to Self-Awareness, Communication Skills and Conflict Management" (New Expanded Edition, Penguin Books, 2007). It is designed for use by anyone working in communication skills and personal development training. Resource material is grouped under…

A Mozart is not a Pavarotti: singers outperform instrumentalists on foreign accent imitation.

Science.gov (United States)

Christiner, Markus; Reiterer, Susanne Maria

2015-01-01

Recent findings have shown that people with higher musical aptitude were also better in oral language imitation tasks. However, whether singing capacity and instrument playing contribute differently to the imitation of speech has been ignored so far. Research has just recently started to understand that instrumentalists develop quite distinct skills when compared to vocalists. In the same vein the role of the vocal motor system in language acquisition processes has poorly been investigated as most investigations (neurobiological and behavioral) favor to examine speech perception. We set out to test whether the vocal motor system can influence an ability to learn, produce and perceive new languages by contrasting instrumentalists and vocalists. Therefore, we investigated 96 participants, 27 instrumentalists, 33 vocalists and 36 non-musicians/non-singers. They were tested for their abilities to imitate foreign speech: unknown language (Hindi), second language (English) and their musical aptitude. Results revealed that both instrumentalists and vocalists have a higher ability to imitate unintelligible speech and foreign accents than non-musicians/non-singers. Within the musician group, vocalists outperformed instrumentalists significantly. First, adaptive plasticity for speech imitation is not reliant on audition alone but also on vocal-motor induced processes. Second, vocal flexibility of singers goes together with higher speech imitation aptitude. Third, vocal motor training, as of singers, may speed up foreign language acquisition processes.

Understanding Listening Competency: A Systematic Review of Research Scales

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Fontana, Peter C.; Cohen, Steven D.; Wolvin, Andrew D.

2015-01-01

To better understand what constitutes listening competency, we perform a systematic review of listening scales. Our goal was twofold: to determine the most commonly appearing listening traits and to determine if listening scales are similar to one other. As part of our analysis, we identified 53 relevant scales and analyzed the scales…

An Analytical Reverse Engineering of IELTS Listening Tasks for a Construct Model

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Masood Khalili Sabet

2017-10-01

Full Text Available The study reported here was concerned with the issue of reverse engineering of language test items as it relates to the identification of the language constructs underlying listening tasks of LELTS test. In this regard, the IELTS examination papers, from IELTS 1 to IELTS 10 were compiled as a corpus for the analysis. Tasks were analyzed using a taxonomic frame work adopted from Moore, Morton and price (2012, that was originally adapted from Weir and Urquhart (1998, with a focus on two dimensions of difference: level of engagement, referring to the level of text with which a listener required to engage in order to respond to a task (local vs. global; type of engagement referring to the way (or ways  listeners expected to engage with a text in order to process the material to respond to a task (literal vs. interpretative. Overall, the analysis found evidences of bottom up processing underlying most IELTS listening tasks. The majority of tasks were identified to have a ‘local-literal’ configuration on their orientation, demanding primarily a basic understanding of relatively small textual units of the material. The results of the study were used to suggest the practical implications for the four groups of the people involved in the IELTS educational contexts: participants; teachers; material preparation experts, and curriculum designers.

On the Relationship between the IELTS Listening and Listening in Academic English Programs

OpenAIRE

Masood Khalili Sabet; Hamid Reza Babaei

2017-01-01

The challenge for many teachers teaching in academic English programs is, on the one hand, to actualize the objectives of their course and on the other hand, prepare their students for the important international tests such as IELTS and TOEFLE. The current study seeks to reconcile this challenge by drawing on the relationship between the IELTS listening and listening in academic English programs. The requirements of the two domains were compared through a semi – structured interview with five...

Cognitive Style and EFL Learners’ Listening Comprehension Ability

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Mandana Yousefi

2011-07-01

Full Text Available Abstract     The current study aimed to investigate whether, and to what extent, there is a relationship between field independence / dependence cognitive styles and Iranian EFL learners' listening comprehension ability. For this purpose, a sample population of 131 Subjects was randomly selected.  A battery of tests including: a the Group Embedded Figures Test (1971, b the TOFEL listening test (1995, c the listening task preference questionnaire, and d the Michigan ECPE test (1996 were administered. The data analysis showed that the correlation between the TOFEL and the GEFT scores for FD learners (both males and females was significant(r =0.70, and higher scores on the GEFT led to an increase in the FD learners TOFEL scores. Conducting one-way and two-way ANOVAs, it was suggested that while there was a relationship between cognitive style and listening comprehension (F= 18.02 and also no relationship between sex and listening comprehension (F=0.267, the interactional effect was significant (f = 7.03. Therefore, sex can be regarded as a source of performance difference in listening comprehension but not by itself and it seems that the interaction of sex and cognitive style can have a stronger effect on this skill. Regarding the learners’ preference toward the different parts of the TOEFL listening section, most  learners favored the short conversations, informal assessment, and one item/one conversation, however, the FI ones did better on the longer conversations of the second and the third parts of the TOEFL listening test. Keywords: Cognitive style, Field dependence, Field independence, Listening comprehension.

Temporal Fine-Structure Coding and Lateralized Speech Perception in Normal-Hearing and Hearing-Impaired Listeners

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Locsei, Gusztav; Pedersen, Julie Hefting; Laugesen, Søren

2016-01-01

This study investigated the relationship between speech perception performance in spatially complex, lateralized listening scenarios and temporal fine-structure (TFS) coding at low frequencies. Young normal-hearing (NH) and two groups of elderly hearing-impaired (HI) listeners with mild or moderate...... hearing loss above 1.5 kHz participated in the study. Speech reception thresholds (SRTs) were estimated in the presence of either speech-shaped noise, two-, four-, or eight-talker babble played reversed, or a nonreversed two-talker masker. Target audibility was ensured by applying individualized linear...... threshold nor the interaural phase difference threshold tasks showed a correlation with the SRTs or with the amount of masking release due to binaural unmasking, respectively. The results suggest that, although HI listeners with normal hearing thresholds below 1.5 kHz experienced difficulties with speech...

"Teacher, the Tape Is Too Fast!" Extensive Listening in ELT

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Renandya, Willy A.; Farrell, Thomas S. C.

2011-01-01

For many years, research effort has been devoted to understanding the nature of listening strategies and how listening strategies used by good listeners can be taught to so-called ineffective listeners. As a result of this line of research, strategy training activities have now become a standard feature of most modern listening coursebooks.…

Perceptual evaluation of backchannel strategies for artificial listeners

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Poppe, Ronald Walter; Truong, Khiet Phuong; Heylen, Dirk K.J.

Artificial listeners are virtual agents that can listen attentively to a human speaker in a dialog. In this paper, we present two experiments where we investigate the perception of rule-based backchannel strategies for artificial listeners. In both, we collect subjective judgements of humans who

Listening Effort With Cochlear Implant Simulations

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Pals, Carina; Sarampalis, Anastasios; Başkent, Deniz

2013-01-01

Purpose: Fitting a cochlear implant (CI) for optimal speech perception does not necessarily optimize listening effort. This study aimed to show that listening effort may change between CI processing conditions for which speech intelligibility remains constant. Method: Nineteen normal-hearing

Enhancing Listening Comprehension through a Group Work Guessing Game

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Sasan Baleghizadeh

2010-12-01

Full Text Available The present paper is an attempt to introduce an innovative technique for a more effective teaching of L2 listening comprehension through a process-oriented approach. Much of what is traditionally known as listening practice is in fact testing material in which students are required to listen to a recording and answer a number of comprehension questions. However, as a preliminary step, teachers should focus on the process of listening comprehension by encouraging students to employ efficient learning strategies during the listening process and cooperatively evaluate them in the class. The suggested technique in this article provides students with appropriate metacognitive strategies, which pave the way for successful L2 listening practice.

Investigation of in-vehicle speech intelligibility metrics for normal hearing and hearing impaired listeners

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Samardzic, Nikolina

, as an example of the significance of speech intelligibility evaluation in the context of an applicable listening environment, as indicated in this research, it was found that the jury test participants required on average an approximate 3 dB increase in sound pressure level of speech material while driving and listening compared to when just listening, for an equivalent speech intelligibility performance and the same listening task.

Smartphone-based Music Listening to Reduce Pain and Anxiety Before Coronarography: A Focus on Sex Differences.

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Guétin, Stéphane; Brun, Luc; Deniaud, Maelle; Clerc, Jean-Michel; Thayer, Julian F; Koenig, Julian

2016-07-01

Background • Music Care is a smartphone-based application providing a musical intervention for the management of pain and anxiety in a clinical setting. Coronarography is a medical procedure frequently associated with examination anxiety. Objectives • The study intended to perform an initial evaluation of the application for use with patients undergoing a coronarography. Design • The research team performed an uncontrolled, observational study. Setting • The study took place at Nouméa General Hospital in Nouméa, New Caledonia, France. Participants • Participants were 35 patients, 17 women and 18 men, who were undergoing a coronarography between November 2010 and April 2011 at the Nouméa General Hospital. Intervention • Participants listened to a standardized musical sequence of adjustable length by choosing a preferred style of music (eg, classic rock or folk music) from a variety of choices that the research team had chosen to include in the application. Outcome Measures • Before and after listening to the music, all participants were asked to rate their anxiety and pain on an 11-item, visual analogue scale and to complete a questionnaire on their satisfaction with use of the application. Results • The paired sample t test revealed a significant reduction in participants' anxiety (t33 = 4.12, P music. No significant reduction in self-reported pain occurred; however, only a few participants reported pain associated with the procedure. No significant sex differences existed. Women and men both showed reduced anxiety after listening to music as well as reported a high level of satisfaction in using the Music Care application. Conclusions • The smartphone-based Music Care application is an easy-to-use tool to reduce anxiety in patients undergoing coronarography. Future large-scale, controlled trials are necessary to compare its effectiveness with other interventions. Both women and men can benefit from the use of the application.