Listeners vary in their ability to understand speech in adverse conditions. Differences in both cognitive and linguistic capacities play a role, but increasing evidence suggests that such factors may contribute differentially depending on the listening challenge. Here, we used multilevel modeling to evaluate contributions of individual differences in age, hearing thresholds, vocabulary, selective attention, working memory capacity, personality traits, and noise sensitivity to variability in measures of comprehension and listening effort in two listening conditions. A total of 35 participants completed a battery of cognitive and linguistic tests as well as a spoken story comprehension task using (1) native-accented English speech masked by speech-shaped noise and (2) nonnative accented English speech without masking. Masker levels were adjusted individually to ensure each participant would show (close to) equivalent word recognition performance across the two conditions. Dependent measures included comprehension tests results, self-rated effort, and electrodermal, cardiovascular, and facial electromyographic measures associated with listening effort. Results showed varied patterns of responsivity across different dependent measures as well as across listening conditions. In particular, results suggested that working memory capacity may play a greater role in the comprehension of nonnative accented speech than noise-masked speech, while hearing acuity and personality may have a stronger influence on physiological responses affected by demands of understanding speech in noise. Furthermore, electrodermal measures may be more strongly affected by affective response to noise-related interference while cardiovascular responses may be more strongly affected by demands on working memory and lexical access.

听众在不利条件下理解语音的能力各不相同。认知和语言能力的差异发挥了一定作用，但越来越多的证据表明，这些因素可能会根据听力挑战的不同而产生不同的影响。在这里，我们使用多级建模来评估年龄、听力阈值、词汇量、选择性注意力、工作记忆能力、个性特征和噪声敏感性等个体差异对两种听力条件下理解和听力努力测量的变异性的贡献。共有 35 名参与者完成了一系列认知和语言测试以及口语故事理解任务，使用（1）被语音形状噪声掩盖的母语口音英语语音和（2）无掩蔽的非母语口音英语语音。单独调整掩码水平，以确保每个参与者在两种条件下表现出（接近）相同的单词识别性能。相关测量包括理解测试结果、自评努力以及与听力努力相关的皮肤电、心血管和面部肌电测量。结果显示，不同的相关测量以及聆听条件下的响应模式各不相同。特别是，结果表明，与噪声掩盖的语音相比，工作记忆容量在理解非母语口音语音方面可能发挥更大的作用，而听力敏锐度和个性可能对受噪声中理解语音需求影响的生理反应产生更大的影响。此外，皮肤电测量可能更强烈地受到对噪声相关干扰的情感反应的影响，而心血管反应可能更强烈地受到工作记忆和词汇访问需求的影响。