Clark Charlotte, Sörqvist Patrik
University of London, London, EC1M 6BQ, UK.
Noise Health. 2012 Nov-Dec;14(61):292-6. doi: 10.4103/1463-1741.104896.
The effect of noise exposure on human performance and behavior continues to be a focus for research activities. This paper reviews developments in the field over the past 3 years, highlighting current areas of research, recent findings, and ongoing research in two main research areas: Field studies of noise effects on children's cognition and experimental studies of auditory distraction. Overall, the evidence for the effects of external environmental noise on children's cognition has strengthened in recent years, with the use of larger community samples and better noise characterization. Studies have begun to establish exposure-effect thresholds for noise effects on cognition. However, the evidence remains predominantly cross-sectional and future research needs to examine whether sound insulation might lessen the effects of external noise on children's learning. Research has also begun to explore the link between internal classroom acoustics and children's learning, aiming to further inform the design of the internal acoustic environment. Experimental studies of the effects of noise on cognitive performance are also reviewed, including functional differences in varieties of auditory distraction, semantic auditory distraction, individual differences in susceptibility to auditory distraction, and the role of cognitive control on the effects of noise on understanding and memory of target speech materials. In general, the results indicate that there are at least two functionally different types of auditory distraction: One due to the interruption of processes (as a result of attention being captured by the sound), another due to interference between processes. The magnitude of the former type is related to individual differences in cognitive control capacities (e.g., working memory capacity); the magnitude of the latter is not. Few studies address noise effects on behavioral outcomes, emphasizing the need for researchers to explore noise effects on behavior in more detail.
噪声暴露对人类表现和行为的影响一直是研究活动的重点。本文回顾了过去三年该领域的发展情况，重点介绍了当前的研究领域、最新研究发现以及两个主要研究领域正在进行的研究：噪声对儿童认知影响的现场研究和听觉分心的实验研究。总体而言，近年来，随着使用更大的社区样本和更精确的噪声特征描述，外部环境噪声对儿童认知影响的证据有所加强。研究已开始确定噪声对认知影响的暴露 - 效应阈值。然而，证据仍主要是横断面研究，未来的研究需要考察隔音是否可以减轻外部噪声对儿童学习的影响。研究还开始探索教室内部声学与儿童学习之间的联系，旨在为内部声学环境的设计提供更多信息。本文还回顾了噪声对认知表现影响的实验研究，包括各种听觉分心的功能差异、语义听觉分心、对听觉分心易感性的个体差异以及认知控制在噪声对目标语音材料理解和记忆影响方面的作用。一般来说，结果表明至少存在两种功能不同的听觉分心类型：一种是由于过程中断（注意力被声音吸引所致），另一种是由于过程之间的干扰。前一种类型的程度与认知控制能力（如工作记忆容量）的个体差异有关；后一种类型的程度则无关。很少有研究涉及噪声对行为结果的影响，这凸显了研究人员更详细地探索噪声对行为影响的必要性。
