Comparing intentional switching of auditory selective attention in children
and adults in an experiment suited for children
Karin LOH(1) , Edina FINTOR(2) , Sophie NOLDEN(3) , Janina FELS(1)(1) Teaching and Research Area of Medical Acoustics, Institute of Technical Acoustics, RWTH Aachen University, Germany,{karin.loh, janina.fels}@akustik.rwth-aachen.de(2) Institute of Psychology, RWTH Aachen University, Germany, edina.fintor@psych.rwth-aachen.de(3) Lifespan Cognitive and Brain Development Lab, Goethe-University Frankfurt a. M., Germany, nolden@psych.uni-frankfurt.de

AbstractA remarkable part of children’s development and education happens in educational institutions. Acoustic environments in these institutions are usually highly complex and noisy, hence it is demanding to identify relevanttarget speakers and to ignore irrelevant sounds. Previous research has analyzed auditory selective attention inadults, both in dichotic and binaural listening environments. Until now, there is little knowledge of auditory
selective attention in children. In the present work, the original paradigm was adapted by using a task suited forchildren which included child-oriented elements. Further, the subject’s anthropometric sizes were considered foran aurally-accurate reproduction of the acoustic scene. Twenty-four adults and twenty-four children participatedin an experiment on auditory selective attention. Noise and noise-free conditions and various target-distractor
distributions in the room were analyzed among others. The result of this experiment revealed significant differences between adults and children, especially in the way auditory attention was influenced by noise.

Keywords: Auditory selective attention, complex acoustic scenes, binaural reproduction

1

BACKGROUNDChildren differ from adults, both considering their anthropometric sizes and their hearing ability. Current noiseassessments in educational institutions are executed using measurement and evaluation methods based on results obtained from research with adults. There is little knowledge whether these observations can be directlytransferred to children. It is important to better understand the differences in listening abilities under different
acoustic conditions between children and adults. One interesting cognitive ability of hearing is auditory selectiveattention which enables one to locate relevant target speakers and to ignore irrelevant sound sources at the sametime. This ability is helpful in highly complex acoustic scenes existing e.g., in educational institutions. Until
now, there is little knowledge of auditory selective attention in children and how it develops over childhood.
The goal of this work is to provide a child-suited paradigm to examine auditory selective attention of children
in comparison to adults and to provide an aurally-accurate presentation of a spatial acoustic scene which also
takes the different anthropometric head and ear sizes of children into consideration.

2MATERIAL AND METHODS

A listening experiment with 24 young adults, aged 18 to 28 years, and 24 children, aged 6 to 10 years, wasconducted. For this purpose, a paradigm on intentional switching of auditory selective attention, originallydeveloped for adults in dichotic listening environment and then extended to a binaural listening setup (1), wasadapted for children by adding child-oriented elements and a feedback system. The previously employed digitword categorization task was simplified for children by substituting it with an animal categorization task.
The listening experiment took place in the mobile hearing laboratory "MobiLab" (2) developed in the Teaching and Research Area of Medical Acoustics, RWTH Aachen University. The MobiLab is a modified trailer

3677

including an acoustically optimized hearing booth, which can be easily placed at the primary school whereparticipants were available for on-site listening experiments. To ensure an aurally-accurate perception of thevirtual acoustic scene, an individualized set of head-related transfer functions (HRTF) was calculated based onthe participant’s individual head dimensions by modifying the ITD cues (3) and the HRTF set of the ITA artificial head (4). A static binaural reproduction via open headphones was chosen for this study using a robust
headphone equalization (5).

3

RESULTS AND CONCLUSION

Response times and error rates were compared between the age-groups, and between the variables attention
switch, congruency, target-distractor-position combination, and noise/no noise. Results of young adults werecomparable to previous research and showed comparable effects, hence the adapted paradigm could be validated to examine auditory selective attention. Further, a significant difference between the age groups could beobserved in reaction time and in error rates. Children tends to react slower and to make more mistakes thanadults. However, the flexibility in auditory selective attention of adults and children were comparable except for
certain spatial conditions. Additionally, a speed-accuracy effect could be noticed for children in the noise/nonoise condition which was not observed for the adults to the same extent.
The results suggest that the modified paradigm is suitable to analyze auditory selective attention of adults andchildren. Furthermore, the study revealed a higher sensitivity to noise and spatial effects in cognitive processesof children in comparison to adults. There is a need to further investigate the impact of different noise impacts
on the cognitive process of children.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work received funding support from ERS Seed Fund – The Excellence Initiative of the German Federal
and State Goverments as well as the HEAD-Genuit-Stiftung under the project ID P-16/17-W with the title"Lärmexposition in Kindertagesstätten, Kindergärten und Grundschulen: Messung mit kindgerechten Verfahren,Analysen und Bewertungen". The authors would like to acknowledge the involved educational institution, as
well as the students Charlotte Eben, Julian Burger and Simon Klein for assisting paradigm design and datacollection.

REFERENCES[1] Oberem, J.; Seibold, J.; Koch, I.; Fels, J. Intentional switching in auditory selective attention: Exploring
attention shifts with different reverberation times. Hearing Research, 359, 2018, 32-39.
[2] Pausch, F.; Fels, J. MobiLab – A Mobile Laboratory for On-Site Listening Experiments in Virtual AcousticEnvironments. (Preprint) bioRxiv, 2019, 625962, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1101/625962.
[3] Bomhardt, R.; Fels, J. Analytical Interaural Time Difference Model for the Individualization of Arbitrary
Head-Related Impulse Responses. Audio Engineering Society Convention 137, 2014.
[4] Schmitz, A. Ein Neues Digitales Kunstkopfmeßsystem. Acta acustica united with acustica, 81 (4), 1995,416-420.
[5] Masiero, B.; Fels, J. Perceptually Robust Headphone Equalization for Binaural Reproduction. Audio Engineering Society Convention 130, 2011.

3678