The linguistic similarity hypothesis states that it is more difficult to segregate target and masker speech when they are linguistically similar. For example, recognition of English target speech should be more impaired by the presence of Dutch masking speech than Mandarin masking speech because Dutch and English are more linguistically similar than Mandarin and English. Across four experiments, English target speech was consistently recognized more poorly when presented in English masking speech than in silence, speech-shaped noise, or an unintelligible masker (i.e., Dutch or Mandarin). However, we found no evidence for graded masking effects—Dutch did not impair performance more than Mandarin in any experiment, despite 650 participants being tested. This general pattern was consistent when using both a cross-modal paradigm (in which target speech was lipread and maskers were presented aurally; Experiments 1a and 1b) and an auditory-only paradigm (in which both the targets and maskers were presented aurally; Experiments 2a and 2b). These findings suggest that the linguistic similarity hypothesis should be refined to reflect the existing evidence: There is greater release from masking when the masker language differs from the target speech than when it is the same as the target speech. However, evidence that unintelligible maskers impair speech identification to a greater extent when they are more linguistically similar to the target language remains elusive.

语言相似性假设指出，当目标语音和掩蔽语音在语言上相似时，它们更难分离。例如，由于荷兰语和英语在语言上比普通话和英语更相似，荷兰语掩蔽语音的存在应该比普通话掩蔽语音更损害英语目标语音的识别。在四个实验中，在英语掩蔽语音中呈现的英语目标语音始​​终比在无声、语音形噪声或难以理解的掩蔽物（即荷兰语或普通话）中识别得更差。然而，我们没有发现分级掩蔽效应的证据——尽管有 650 名参与者接受了测试，但在任何实验中，荷兰语对表现的影响并不比普通话大。当使用跨模态范式（其中目标语音是唇读，掩蔽者以听觉方式呈现；实验 1a 和 1b）和纯听觉范式（其中目标和掩蔽者都以听觉方式呈现；实验2a 和 2b)。这些发现表明，语言相似性假设应该被改进以反映现有的证据：当掩蔽语言与目标语音不同时，掩蔽语言与目标语音相同时，掩蔽的释放更大。然而，当难以理解的掩蔽者在语言上与目标语言更相似时，它们在更大程度上损害语音识别的证据仍然难以捉摸。实验 1a 和 1b）和仅听觉范式（其中目标和掩蔽物都以听觉方式呈现；实验 2a 和 2b）。这些发现表明，语言相似性假设应该被改进以反映现有的证据：当掩蔽语言与目标语音不同时，掩蔽语言与目标语音相同时，掩蔽的释放更大。然而，当难以理解的掩蔽者在语言上与目标语言更相似时，它们在更大程度上损害语音识别的证据仍然难以捉摸。实验 1a 和 1b）和仅听觉范式（其中目标和掩蔽物都以听觉方式呈现；实验 2a 和 2b）。这些发现表明，语言相似性假设应该被改进以反映现有的证据：当掩蔽语言与目标语音不同时，掩蔽语言与目标语音相同时，掩蔽的释放更大。然而，当难以理解的掩蔽者在语言上与目标语言更相似时，它们在更大程度上损害语音识别的证据仍然难以捉摸。当掩蔽语言与目标语音不同时，掩蔽语言的释放比与目标语音相同时更大。然而，当难以理解的掩蔽者在语言上与目标语言更相似时，它们在更大程度上损害语音识别的证据仍然难以捉摸。当掩蔽语言与目标语音不同时，掩蔽语言的释放比与目标语音相同时更大。然而，当难以理解的掩蔽者在语言上与目标语言更相似时，它们在更大程度上损害语音识别的证据仍然难以捉摸。