Laboratory study on effects of environment noise on children’s short-term memory

Abstract

In laboratory settings 18 children of 6-7 years old were asked to finish series of short-term memory tasks under the different sound situation. The noise stimuli used in the experiment were both road traffic noise and low frequency noise of LAeq.2min = 40, 45, and 50 dB to simulate the indoor sound condition when the children at school or at home. The result showed both road traffic noise and low frequency noise had influence on children’s task achievement and significant adverse effects on subjective noise annoyance evaluation. Comparing with the linear dose-response relationship of road traffic noise, the effects brought by low frequency noise to children’s short-term memory work and noise annoyance evaluation was more complicated. There was an interesting trend that higher noise annoyance was evaluated, the higher task marks was obtained. As for the gender difference, boys showed more sensitivity to low frequency noise than girls.