Listening effort in children and adults in classroom noise.

It is well known that hearing in noisy situations is more challenging than in quiet environments. This holds true for adults and especially for children. This study employed a child-appropriate dual-task paradigm to investigate listening effort in children aged six to ten years and young adults.

Examining the Auditory Selective Attention Switch in a Child-Suited Virtual Reality Classroom Environment.

The ability to focus ones attention in different acoustical environments has been thoroughly investigated in the past. However, recent technological advancements have made it possible to perform laboratory experiments in a more realistic manner. In order to investigate close-to-real-life scenarios, a classroom was modeled in virtual reality (VR) and an established paradigm to investigate the auditory selective attention (ASA) switch was translated from an audio-only version into an audiovisual VR setting.

Children's intentional switching of auditory selective attention in spatial and noisy acoustic environments in comparison to adults.

Children's development and education take place in educational buildings with highly complex acoustic scenes, including spatially distributed target speakers, many surrounding distracting sounds, and general background noises. Auditory selective attention, therefore, is a valuable tool to orient oneself, to focus on specific sound sources, and to extract relevant information. Until now, it is unknown to what extent children have developed the cognitive processes of intentional attention control in spatial situations and how they differ from adults.