Beyond change-of-state in auditory distraction: How token set size effects vary with age
4. Effects of noise on cognition, performance and behaviourKeywords: Auditory distraction; token set size; children; serial recall
Tanja Joseph3, John Marsh3, Jan Röer4, 5, Raoul Bell4, Axel Buchner4
1 Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences, Tampere University, 33720 Tampere, Finland
2 Department of Psychology and Logopedics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
3 School of Psychology, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK
4 School of Experimental Psychology, Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf, DE
5 Department of Psychology and Psychotherapy, Witten/Herdecke University, Witten, DE
Introduction
Acoustical environments affect cognitive work. Disruption of serial recall performance by background speech depends upon the content of the to-be-ignored sequence of sound beyond the fact of change. Increments in token set size, the number of different types of sound in such sequences, can increase the extent of disruption: Increments in set size from one (AAAA..) to two (ABABAB…) produce an increased disruption. The subtler increases in disruption with increments in set size beyond two have proved relatively equivocal in adult populations, albeit attaining significance in more sensitive or higher-powered procedures. However, it remained unknown how set size effects vary with age. Here we show in participants aged 8-11 years and 18-38 years, a disruption with set size increments from zero to one, which increases in the adult group, whereas disruptive advantages of two-tokens over one-token and twelve- over two-tokens do not. Modeling moderation and mediation ascertains how, on an individual level, increased age associates strongly with improved performance in quiet and an increased disruption by one token, yet associates weakly with a reduced disruptive advantage of twelve- over two-tokens.