Identification of English consonants in intervocalic contexts in multispeaker babble noise by Japanese listeners: Correlation between English proficiency and consonant identification ability

A study was conducted to establish correlation between English proficiency and consonant identification ability during identification of English consonants in intervocalic contexts in multi-speaker babble noise by Japanese listeners. TOEIC scores and the number of months spent living in English-speaking countries were used to measure the Japanese participants' English proficiency. TOEIC was used to measure the Japanese participants? English proficiency, as it was widely used in Japanese universities as a means to evaluate students' English proficiency. The number of months spent in English-speaking countries was also used to investigate the correlation between English consonant identification under the assumption that listeners with a longer experience of residing in English-speaking countries were more used to and in need of perceiving English speech under a more or less adverse listening condition.