Sutcliffe Paul, Bishop Dorothy
School of Health and Related Research, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S1 4DA, UK.
J Exp Child Psychol. 2005 Jul;91(3):249-70. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2005.03.004.
We investigated how different psychophysical procedures affect frequency discrimination performance in children. Four studies used a design in which listeners heard two tone pairs and had to identify whether the first or second pair contained a higher frequency target tone. Thresholds for 6- and 7-year-olds were higher than those for 8- and 9-year-olds and adults. Two manipulations led to lower (better) thresholds in young children: (a) moving the standard comparison tone before the target tone and (b) using three target comparison tone pairs. It is suggested that young children benefit from designs that help cue them to when they need to attend to a target tone. The two-interval, forced-choice procedure that is widely used in studies of developmental disorders led to variable performance even in adults and did not give a realistic picture of the perceptual capabilities of children under 8 years of age.
我们研究了不同的心理物理学程序如何影响儿童的频率辨别能力。四项研究采用了一种设计，即让听众聆听两对音调，然后必须确定第一对还是第二对包含更高频率的目标音调。6岁和7岁儿童的阈值高于8岁、9岁儿童及成年人。两种操作降低了（改善了）幼儿的阈值：（a）将标准比较音调移至目标音调之前；（b）使用三对目标比较音调。研究表明，幼儿受益于有助于提示他们何时需要关注目标音调的设计。在发育障碍研究中广泛使用的双间隔、强制选择程序，即使在成年人中也导致了不稳定的表现，并且没有真实反映8岁以下儿童的感知能力。
