Introduction:
Various types of noise have been used with speech material to assess speech perception in noise (SPIN) abilities. The literature suggests that speech identification varies with different types of background noise, and it has been reported that the target native language and the language of the babbling influence performance. Such efforts in an Indian context have not yet been reported. The aim of the study is to evaluate the speech perception in noise performance of Malayalam-speaking young adults with normal hearing using three different background noises.

Material and methods:
A repeated measure research design were adopted with a random sampling method. 30 native Malayalam speakers with normal hearing between the ages of 18 and 25 participated in the study. A standardized sentence list in Malayalam was used as the speech stimulus. Nine lists were chosen and randomly divided so that there were three lists to each background noise. Noises were speech spectrum-shaped noise, non-native language multi-talker babble (Kannada), and native language multi-talker babble (Malayalam). Each successfully repeated keyword received a ‘1’ and each incorrectly repeated word received a ‘0.’ Because each sentence had four important words, each collection of 10 sentences scored a maximum of 40. The percentage of correct answers was determined and further analyzed.

Results:
Scores were significantly different in all three different background noises across different SNRs. The highest scores were obtained at +5 dB SNR and the poorest scores at –5 dB SNR. Among the three different background noises, native multi-talker babble (Malayalam) yielded better scores than non-native multi-talker babble (Kannada), followed last by speech spectrum-shaped noise.

Conclusions:
The findings of the current study may be attributed to the increased efficacy of speech spectrum noise due to its energetic masking characteristics and the similarity between the two languages in terms of its origin and acoustic-phonetic properties.