Listening effort for sentence comprehension in noisy classrooms: the mediating role of linguistic factors, inhibitory control, and noise sensitivity

Children learn in classrooms in the presence of background noise, mostly produced by the children themselves. Even when the acoustic conditions are favorable (i.e., low noise levels), differences in individual performance and listening effort in complex academic tasks are observed. Personal characteristics such as linguistic and cognitive skills and sensitivity to noise have been reported as factors supporting students’ performance. Moreover, the Framework for Understanding Effortful Listening (FUEL) postulates the additional, individual dimension of children’s motivation should be considered when evaluating listening effort, besides task cognitive demands. This study aims to explore the interplay of the above-mentioned individual factors for primary school children (N=120, grades 3 to 5) doing a sentence comprehension task in two-talkers background noise. Data on both accuracy and response time, as well as self-ratings of effort and motivation, were acquired. In addition, inhibitory control, linguistic competencies, and self-ratings of noise sensitivity were measured in quiet. Results first highlight the interplay of acoustic conditions and linguistic competencies in shaping the child’s motivation in performing the task, and then show how the children’s inhibitory control and noise sensitivity mediate behavioral and subjective effort. Thus, individual factors shall be taken into consideration when evaluating the effect of classroom acoustics on performance in academic tasks.