The effect of native/non-native information on non-native listeners' comprehension

Using the matched-guise protocol, this study investigated the effect of native/non-native information on non-native listeners' comprehension. In the experiment, Cantonese-learners of English listened to recordings by a native speaker of American English and completed four comprehension tasks: cloze, multiple-choice, short answer and true/false. Half of the participants were told that the speaker was a native speaker of American English (the American guise group, or AG); whereas the other half were told that the speaker was a Cantonese learner of English (the Cantonese guise group, or CG). The AG group outperformed the CG group in all tasks, except for the short-answer task.