Auditory distraction in school-age children relative to individual differences in working memory capacity

Abstract

We examined susceptibility to auditory distraction and its association to working-memory capacity (WMC) in children (N=125) using a dichotic listening task. Performance in a dichotic listening task was measured with and without distracting multi-talker babble (MTB). Intrusion errors from the to-be-ignored ear and the overall errors of any type between the two conditions were modeled to explain the role of WMC and the potential moderating effect of MTB, while controlling for age. Susceptibility to auditory distraction when represented by the absolute difference in errors between MTB and no-MTB conditions was not associated with WMC and age. That is, children with greater WMC were no better at ignoring interference from babble than children with low WMC. This suggests that irrelevant sounds have obligatory access to verbal short-term memory and are not effectively suppressed by the attention-controlled WM system. However, when ratio of errors with and without MTB was analyzed, children with high WMC made more errors compared to children with low WMC. Developmental improvements in children’s WMC do not appear to advantage listening in the presence of distracting background noise. Therefore, enhancement of target speech in children’s learning environments is crucial.