The effect of elevated subway train noise over time on black children's visual vigilance performance

Abstract

This study investigated the effect of exposure to subway noise over time on young children's visual vigilance performance. 102 kindergarteners attending day care centers near and far from elevated subways were presented tachistoscopically (100 msec) one-, two-, three-, and four-item pictorial arrays of geometric shapes, objects and fruit. Children reported verbally or by pressing a telegraph key the presence and absence of a critical stimulus. Factorial analyses revealed that only girls' performance under verbal response mode conditions manifested adverse effects of exposure to subway noise over time ( P < 0·05). The findings suggest that subway noise had no universal cumulative effect upon young children's visual performance; rather, such an effect varied as a function of the nature of the task (response mode), length of exposure and sex.