Combined assessment of cognitive and physiological parameters in child-appropriate listening experiments

Abstract

In classrooms, children are mostly exposed to a significant amount of noise daily. Noise effects are typically discussed regarding aural effects (e.g., hearing impairments) but can also be expressed in a cognitive (e.g., auditory attention and memory) and physiological manner (e.g., stress-related bodily reactions). There is little information on how these latter two types of noise effects are linked and to what extent these might affect children’s learning and development. It is, therefore, desirable to integrate both types in a combined assessment within controlled listening experiments to determine these correlating factors. This work explores the requirements of child-appropriate experiments to assess both cognitive and physiological parameters in a virtual acoustic environment. In combination with a child-appropriate paradigm on auditory selective attention, the suitability of heart rate variability parameters is discussed based on results from a pilot study conducted with adults.