Processing L2-accented speech: lessons from pupillometry and the dual task paradigm

In most conversations, people correctly recognize the words their interlocutor produces. The work required to do this, however, can vary widely among speakers, listeners, and situations. Factors, such as hearing loss, environmental noise, language proficiency, or familiarity with each other’s ways of speaking, can significantly affect how much effort is required to understand speech. This presentation will discuss approaches to studying this work in the context of processing of L2-accented speech. Specifically, it will focus on lessons learned from pupillometry (a physiological measure) and the dual task paradigm (a behavioral measure), which we are using to elucidate relationships among listening effort, speech intelligibility, and individual listener characteristics.