噪声和混响对儿童工作记忆广度的影响.doc

The effects of the noise and reverberation on the working memory span of children Peng Jianxin，Jiang Peng School of Physics and Optoelectronics, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, China Email: phjxpeng@163.com Abstract：Three different reverberation time (RT) conditions were obtained by room acoustical simulation. The working memory span of grade 3 (8 to 9 years old) and 6 children (11 to 12 years old) were tested under these reverberation conditions with different signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) by headphone reproduction in a quiet classroom. The working memory span scores (WMSSs) were obtained under the different RTs and SNRs conditions. The results demonstrated that childrens age, RT and SNR had significant effect on childrens WMSSs. With the increase of SNR and the decrease of RT, the WMSSs increased gradually. Under the same SNR and RT condition, the childrens WMSSs was increased with the increase of the age. Multiple linear regression analysis shows that childrens WMSSs are related to age, RT and SNR, and the correlation coefficient is 0.99.. Key words：Reverberation time; Signal-to-noise ratio; Working memory span; Children Introduction Working memory span (WMS)is a measure of the capacity of individual working memory units, and reflects the storage capacity and processing efficiency of working memory (Andrew et al., 2005). Working memory is of great significance in advanced cognitive activities such as verbal comprehension, problem solving, reasoning and learning. Baddeley and Hitch (1974) proposed a multi-component working memory model through experimental investigation. They thought that while working memory originates from short-term memory, it is not equivalent to short-term memory. The classroom is an important place where children acquire knowledge. They not only listen to what teachers say in the given moment, but also need later to remember what was said. The effect of excessive noise and reverberation do not only restrict children’s h