Strength of noise effects on memory as a function of noise source and age

• The objectives in this paper were to analyse noise effects on episodic and semantic memory performance in different age groups, and to see whether age interacted with noise in their effects on memory. Data were taken from three separate previous experiments, that were performed with the same design, procedure and dependent measures with participants from four age groups (13-14, 18-20, 35-45 and 55-65 years). Participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: (a) meaningful irrelevant speech, (b) road traffic noise, and (c) quiet. The results showed effects of both noise sources on a majority of the dependent measures, both when taken alone and aggregated according to the nature of the material to be memorised. However, the noise effects for episodic memory tasks were stronger than for semantic memory tasks. Further, in the reading comprehension task, cued recall and recognition were more impaired by meaningful irrelevant speech than by road traffic noise. Contrary to predictions, there was no interaction between noise and age group, indicating that the obtained noise effects were not related to the capacity to perform the task. The results from the three experiments taken together throw more light on the relative effects of road traffic noise and meaningful irrelevant speech on memory performance in different age groups.

Subject headings

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Annan medicin och hälsovetenskap (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Other Medical and Health Sciences (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Age groups

Meaningful irrelevant speech

Memory

Road traffic noise

adolescent

adult

age

aged

article

association

attention

comprehension

controlled study

female

human

human experiment

male

noise

normal human

recall

recognition

semantics

sound detection

speech perception

task performance

traffic noise

Age Factors

Humans

Memory Disorders

Middle Aged

Speech

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)