ERS Seed Fund: Auditory selective attention in preschool and elementary school-aged children – development of a child-appropriate attention paradigm.

The aim of this project is to develop a child-friendly paradigm with tasks and stimuli suited for preschool and primary school children. The acoustic scenes should be as natural and close-to-real life to the children as possible. Results from this project on the control of auditory selective attention in childhood will complement research with young and older adults leading to a coherent picture of the development of auditory attentional control across the lifespan. Additionally, different levels of environmental noise are integrated into the simulated acoustic scenes. With this, it is possible to investigate the influence of noise exposure on cognitive functions such as auditory attention in a controlled manner. Listening experiments are conducted on-site to minimize effort for parents and schools. For this, the listening experiments are designed for the mobile laboratory allowing to reduce surrounding noise sources while reducing distances to children’s familiar educational institutions. As an endpoint of this project, the experimental paradigm including stimulus material will be developed and piloted.

This project was funded by the ERS Seed Fund, RWTH Aachen University.

Additional information can be found here.