Children's Noise: Are Complaints of Disturbance Based on a Measurable Reduction in Cognitive Performance?

摘要

In Germany, the noise of children in neighborhoods surrounding kindergartens is subject to ongoing discussions. Numerous complaints are filed against daycare facilities by residents. In recently conducted evaluations, children's noise achieved high annoyance ratings in relation to various kinds of attenuated and not attenuated environmental noise. The question was raised whether children's noise actually reduces cognitive performance and if yes how much. In a first experiment 20 persons had to perform a serial recall task under three different sound conditions, - quiet, single German speaker and children's noise. The serial recall task demands the memorization and reproduction of consecutively presented digits in the correct order. Usually, speech sounds impair the participant's performance in this task; a phenomenon which is well known as the irrelevant sound effect. In the actual experiment error rates were significantly higher in the single speaker condition compared to the quiet condition. No significant differences were found between quiet and the children's noise condition.