Effects of background noise on word learning in preschool-age children

项目摘要/摘要：童年时期长期暴露于背景噪音会对儿童的健康产生负面影响。 语言、识字和认知发展，对儿童的学业成绩产生影响， 未来的就业潜力。一种假定的机制，将噪音与语言和认知能力的下降联系起来 发展的关键是噪音破坏了幼儿建立词汇的能力。一个强大的文学 表明噪音主要通过能量掩蔽来扰乱对口语的感知， 该噪声限制了目标语音的高保真度编码，以及信息掩蔽，其中噪声税 注意力控制和工作记忆等认知过程。背景噪音可能会干扰文字 通过类似的机制学习。虽然有研究测试噪音对单词的影响 这些研究在数量上很少，方法上也各不相同。儿童自然主义的噪音 环境在类型上变化（例如，环境噪音[空调]和背景语音），强度 水平（即，声音有多大），语义内容（即，孩子是否理解背景语音），以及 空间位置：施加不同能量和信息掩蔽量的因素。此外，本发明还 学龄前儿童认知和语言能力的差异可能会影响他们的易感性 噪音的负面影响。因此，我们缺乏关于认知因素如何与变异相互作用的知识 噪音对幼儿词汇学习的影响这是一个关键的差距，因为口语输入是唯一的来源， 也是终生词汇学习的重要来源。本研究 将测试新单词学习的时间过程中存在的背景噪音，不同的类型，空间 位置，语义内容和强度水平，这些因素影响幼儿对 目标语音具体地，噪声将根据其是否包含语音内容而变化（目标1）， 它是否与目标语音位于同一位置或空间分离（目标2），无论它是否包含熟悉的语义 语音内容与仅熟悉的语音内容（目标3），以及其强度水平（目标1，3）。到 为了实现这些目标，将对一大批4至6岁的儿童进行新词语的培训， 在随后的三天里，这个年龄段是有针对性的，因为儿童的言语感知 在这段时间的发展中，非常容易受到噪音的影响，这是一个重要的年龄， 基础词汇技能。每个孩子都将在一个噪音条件下进行测试，噪音将 在不同条件下系统地改变。通过这种方法，我们将确定各种噪声 条件既影响了儿童学习的单词数量，也影响了儿童表征的语音精确度 在整个学习过程中。这项工作符合儿童研究的优先事项 发展和行为分支的NICHD，因为我们将确定如何方面的儿童的环境 影响单词学习，这是长期语言，认知和学术成果的关键过程。

Project Summary/Abstract: Chronic exposure to background noise during childhood negatively impacts language, literacy, and cognitive development, with repercussions for children’s academic achievement and future employment potential. A putative mechanism linking noise to decrements in language and cognitive development is that noise disrupts young children’s ability to build a vocabulary. A robust literature demonstrates that noise disrupts the perception of spoken words primarily through energetic masking, in which noise limits high fidelity encoding of target speech, and informational masking, in which noise taxes cognitive processes such as attentional control and working memory. Background noise likely disrupts word learning through similar mechanisms. Although there have been studies testing the effects of noise on word learning, these studies are few in number and variable in methodology. The noises in children’s naturalistic environments vary in type (e.g., environmental noise [air conditioners] and background speech), intensity level (i.e., how loud it is), semantic content (i.e., whether the child understands the background speech), and spatial location: factors that exert different amounts of energetic and informational masking. Additionally, differences in cognitive and language abilities among preschool-age children likely affect their susceptibility to the negative effects of noise. Thus, we lack knowledge about how cognitive factors interact with variations in noise to affect word learning in young children. This is a critical gap because spoken input is the sole source of word learning in prereaders and an important source of word learning over the lifespan. The present study will test the time course of novel word learning in the presence of background noise that varies in type, spatial location, semantic content, and intensity level, which are factors that influence young children’s perception of target speech. Specifically, the noise will vary by whether it contains speech content or not (Aim 1), whether it is co-located or spatially separated from the target speech (Aim 2), whether it contains familiar semantic and phonetic content versus only familiar phonetic content (Aim 3), and its intensity level (Aims 1, 3). To accomplish these aims, a large cohort of children between 4 and 6 years of age will be trained on novel word- referent pairs across three subsequent days. This age range is targeted because children’s speech perception is highly susceptible to the effects of noise during this time in development, and it is an important age to build foundational vocabulary skills. Each child will be tested in one noise condition, and the noise will be systematically changed across conditions. Through this approach, we will determine how various noise conditions affect both the number of words learned and the phonological precision of children’s representation of the words throughout the learning process. This work aligns with the research priorities of the Child Development and Behavior Branch of the NICHD as we will identify how aspects of children’s environments affect word learning, a critical process for long-term language, cognitive, and academic outcomes.