magentalass...
This was an interesting question to research, with some
surprising results.
From the article, 'Design of Child Care Centers and
Effects of Noise on Young Children', by Dr. Lorraine E.
Maxwell & Dr. Gary W. Evans of Cornell University:
"There is a considerable amount of research documenting
the effects of noise on children. The effects are largely
negative."
They go on to discuss the different types of effects that
have been documented, including Physiological effects,
such as increased blood pressure, Motivational effects,
such as learned helplessness and decreased tolerance for
frustration, and Cognitive effects, which include effects
on memory:
"The research on memory and noise for children parallels
that of adults; there appears to be little or no effects
of noise on simple memory. This holds true for both
chronic and acute exposure to noise. However, if the
memory task requires special attention there does appear
to be some negative effects of noise. In other words, if
the individual has to pay particular attention because of
the difficulty of the task, noise may interfere with the
memory task. Noise levels in these studies were in the
range of 22 - 78dBA. [70dba is the EPA's recommended max]
The research on attention suggests that children exposed
to chronic noise may suffer deficits in this area.
Children exposed to chronic noise seem to develop
cognitive strategies for coping with the distracting
effect of noise. Young children (5 years old) from noisy
residential environments seem to be better able to tune
out distracting auditory stimuli when asked to perform
a discrimination task in a noisy environment than
children from quieter homes. Four year old children from
noisy day care centers performed better under noisy
conditions than children from quiet day care centers.
These young children seem to be resistant to the
distracting effects of noise because they tune out
the noise. However, additional research suggests that
as children get older (school-aged) this advantage
disappears. In these studies older children from quieter
environments were better at discrimination tasks done
under noisy conditions. These children were able to
screen out the noise and concentrate on important cues.
Children from noisy environments learned to tune out
auditory stimuli but in a nondiscriminatory way and
tuned out important cues."
http://www.designshare.com/Research/LMaxwell/NoiseChildren.htm
From the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association
(ASHA) website, and article titled, 'The Effect of Noise
on Public Health: International Congress Explores Global
Impact':
[Finegold, L. S., Job, S., de Jong, R., Griefahn, B.
(2004, Oct. 5). The effect of noise on public health:
International congress explores global impact.
The ASHA Leader, pp. 6-7, 13]
"Preliminary results indicate that reading comprehension,
recognition memory, cued recall, and prospective memory
are impaired in those exposed to aircraft noise but not
impaired by traffic noise."
Much more on the page:
http://www.asha.org/about/publications/leader-online/archives/2004/041005/f041005b.htm
Not only that, but an article on the Planet Ark newsite,
titled, 'Road Noise Can Improve Memory in Children - Study',
notes:
"Based on a sample of 2,800 children aged between nine
and 10 years from 89 primary schools near three major
airports -- Amsterdam's Schiphol, Madrid's Barajas and
London's Heathrow -- the study is the largest of its kind."
It found the reading age of children exposed to high levels
of aircraft noise was put back by two months in Britain and
up to a month in the Netherlands for a five decibel change
in noise exposure.
On the other hand, exposure to road traffic noise did not
delay reading age and was unexpectedly found to help memory
recall.
However, a combination of the two was associated with
increased stress and reduced quality of life in the children."
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/31095/story.htm
An Australian study, titled, 'Effect of noise on the cognitive
processes of human operators', by Laurence Richard Hartley,
[IN: Trends in the ergonomics of work: proceedings of the 23rd
Annual Conference of the Ergonomics Society of Australia and
New Zealand, Perth 24-28 Nov., 1986. - Melbourne: Ergonomics
Society of Australia and New Zealand. - p.186-195]
notes that the effect of noise on memory may depend a great
deal on the subject's strategy for memorization:
"...most recent work has examined either immediate memory
or retrieval from long term memory under noisy conditions.
Some of these studies show that the person's strategy for
remembering items is important. Particular attention will
be paid to these studies not only because they are the
most recent but also because they have implications for
the practitioner. Not all of these studies have found
either a detrimental effect of noise or even any effect
of noise level at all. However, in the majority of such
studies an adverse effect of noise has been found.
http://www.nohsc.gov.au/OHSInformation/Databases/Archived/bibliodetails.asp?ohslid=3858
To summarize:
- Effects seem to be about the same for adults and children.
Noise has little effect on simple memory, but has a negative
impact on attention needed for difficult memorization tasks.
- Louder, intermittent noises such as aircraft have a more
detrimental effect than high-level ambient noises such as
traffic, which may even, inexplicably, improve memory,
while still fostering other negative effects in areas such
as physiological and motivational.
- While the majority of studies suggest that the presence of
noise is generally detrimental, not all of them do. The
effects of noise on memory may be offset by the methods
of memorization. More study needs to be done to clarify this.
Please do not rate this answer until you are satisfied that
the answer cannot be improved upon by way of a dialog
established through the "Request for Clarification" process.
A user's guide on this topic is on skermit-ga's site, here:
http://www.christopherwu.net/google_answers/answer_guide.html#how_clarify
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Additional information may be found from an exploration of
the links resulting from the Google searches outlined below.
Searches done, via Google:
"effect of noise" memorization OR memory
://www.google.com/search?q=%22effect+of+noise%22+memorization+OR+memory |
