Auditory distraction in school-age children relative to individual differences in working memory capacity
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Auditory distraction in school-age children relative to individual differences in working memory capacity Naveen K. Nagaraj 1
&
Beula M. Magimairaj 1 & Sarah Schwartz 2
# The Psychonomic Society, Inc. 2020
Abstract We examined susceptibility to auditory distraction and its association to working-memory capacity (WMC) in children (N=125) using a dichotic listening task. Performance in a dichotic listening task was measured with and without distracting multi-talker babble (MTB). Intrusion errors from the to-be-ignored ear and the overall errors of any type between the two conditions were modeled to explain the role of WMC and the potential moderating effect of MTB, while controlling for age. Susceptibility to auditory distraction when represented by the absolute difference in errors between MTB and no-MTB conditions was not associated with WMC and age. That is, children with greater WMC were no better at ignoring interference from babble than children with low WMC. This suggests that irrelevant sounds have obligatory access to verbal short-term memory and are not effectively suppressed by the attention-controlled WM system. However, when ratio of errors with and without MTB was analyzed, children with high WMC made more errors compared to children with low WMC. Developmental improvements in children’s WMC do not appear to advantage listening in the presence of distracting background noise. Therefore, enhancement of target speech in children’s learning environments is crucial. Keywords Auditory distraction . Working memory capacity . Attention . Dichotic listening
Introduction
Significance Listening difficulties in complex auditory environments have significant implications for children’s learning and functioning. This is of particular relevance to children with developmental language disorders, attention deficits, or auditory processing deficits. Studying influential factors in children’s listening performance is crucial to better identify the sources of deficits contributing to poor speech perception in noise in children. This study in children representing a continuum of cognitive abilities, provides a foundation for studies in at-risk/clinical groups. Results suggested that susceptibility to auditory distraction was not influenced by children’s age and working-memory capacity, thus increasing the emphasis on reducing distracting noise and enhancing target speech in children’s learning environments. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-020-02056-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Naveen K. Nagaraj [email protected] 1
Cognitive Hearing Science Lab, Communicative Disorders and Deaf Education, Utah State University, 2600 Old Main Hill, Logan, UT 84322, USA
2
Psychology, Utah State University, Logan, UT, USA
Selective attention is a fundamental cognitive skill that is crucial for listening as it occurs in real-life situations where multiple irrelevant stimuli exist. It is suggested that selective attention
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