Effects of experimentally imposed noise on task performance of Black children attending day care centers near elevated subway trains.

Investigated whether an experimentally imposed 80 db (A) noise differentially affected the psychomotor, serial memory words and pictures, incidental memory, visual recall, paired associates, perceptual learning, and coding performance of 109 predominantly Black, low socioeconomic status (SES) 5-yr-old children attending daycare centers near and far from elevated subways. Ss were administered psychomotor tasks at the beginning and end of a noisy or quiet play condition and cognitive and perceptual tasks during a noisy or quiet test condition. Factorial analyses revealed that only psychomotor performance was significantly impaired by the 80 db (A) noise. A significant interaction between daycare center environmental noise level and test was found on the coding task, with Ss from relatively noisy daycare centers performing best under noisy test conditions and their counterparts under quiet conditions. Findings suggest that noise does not have a universal effect on children's performance, but the effects vary as a function of the nature of the task and previous exposure to noise. (39 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)