00000nam 2200000za 4500 9.853443 CaOODSP 20240219183501 cr ||||||||||| 180312s2017 oncd fo f000 0 eng d CaOODSP eng n-cn--- D69-51/2017E-PDF Nakashima, Ann. Communication in military environments [electronic resource] : influence of noise, hearing protection and language proficiency / Ann Nakashima, Sharon M. Abel and Ingrid Smith. [Ottawa] : Defence Research and Development Canada, c2017. 1 v. : col. charts External literature (P) ; DRDC-RDDC-2017-P111 Published in: Applied Acoustics 131 (2018) 38-44. Includes bibliographic references. Military training and international operations require different nationalities to communicate in a common language, where there are potential challenges with non-native (L2) speech communication. An experiment of speech communication in military noise was conducted for co-located (face-to-face [F2F]) and distributed (using communication headsets) talker-listener pairs. Half of the twenty-four participants were monolingual English speakers (native group, NA) and the remaining half had obtained English fluency after the age of eight years (nonnative group, NN). Two tests of speech understanding were used: the Modified Rhyme Test (MRT) and the Speech Perception in Noise test (SPIN). In the F2F condition, the participants wore a communication headset (earmuff) with the power off for occluded listening. Three levels of armoured vehicle noise were used, 55, 60 and 65 dBA, for speech-to-noise ratios ranging from −10 to +5 dB. In the radio condition, the pairs were separated by a visual barrier and used the communication headset for the tests in 80 dBA armoured vehicle noise. The results showed that the NN group had difficulty with the SPIN test in the radio and F2F conditions. This result was attributed to the open-response set of the SPIN. Headset occlusion likely contributed to the lower scores for the NN listeners in the F2F condition. There was a main effect of talker for the MRT in the F2F and radio conditions, and for the SPIN in the radio condition, suggesting that foreign accent reduced the intelligibility for both the NA and NN groups. The results were surprising considering the high L2 proficiency of the NN group. Training methods for improving L2 communication in operational settings should be further investigated. gccst Communications gccst Safety equipment gccst Languages Smith, Ingrid. Abel, Sharon M. Defence R&D Canada. External literature (P) (Defence R&D Canada) DRDC-RDDC-2017-P111 (CaOODSP)9.854437 PDF 760 KB https://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2018/rddc-drdc/D69-51-2017-eng.pdf