Revisiting the target-masker linguistic similarity hypothesis.

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.

Understanding Speech Amid the Jingle and Jangle: Recommendations for Improving Measurement Practices in Listening Effort Research.

The latent constructs psychologists study are typically not directly accessible, so researchers must design measurement instruments that are intended to provide insights about those constructs. Construct validation-assessing whether instruments measure what they intend to-is therefore critical for ensuring that the conclusions we draw actually reflect the intended phenomena. Insufficient construct validation can lead to the falsely assuming two instruments measure the same construct because the instruments share a name (Thorndike, 1904)-and the falsely assuming two instruments measure different constructs because the instruments have different names (Kelley, 1927).