The role of language proficiency on the perception of speech and song

During everyday communication, background noise can affect our ability to comprehend speech accurately. Although many studies have investigated perception of speech in noisy environments, it is less clear how our perception in noisy environments could be enhanced by song, which could be beneficial due to melodic/rhythmic predictability. Language proficiency may also impact perception of song and speech. The current study aimed to clarify the unique struggles that people with low language proficiency face. We used the Test of Adolescent and Adult Language - Fourth Edition (TOAL-4) to divide 48 participants into low and high-English proficiency groups. Participants’ speech-in-noise performance was assessed across four blocks of sung and spoken sentences. As predicted, performance improved for both song and speech over the course of the experiment and was higher in high-proficiency participants than low-proficiency English speakers. However, contrary to our predictions, participants found it harder to comprehend song than speech. This did not interact with language proficiency (high versus low). Overall, our findings suggest that, regardless of language background, song does not benefit perception in noise, challenging previous research that highlight the benefit of melodies and rhythms in facilitating speech perception in noisy or difficult listening environments.