Differences Between Subjective and Behavioral Listening Effort in Children Across Age and Task Complexity

OBJECTIVES: This study investigated the effects of task complexity and age on children's listening effort and speech perception in plausibly auralized classroom environments. It focused on five research hypotheses that addressed the effects of noise and acoustic conditions, task difficulty, and age on both behavioral and subjective measures of listening effort and their combined influence on speech perception. DESIGN: The study involved 39 elementary school children between the ages of 6 and 10. Participants performed a word recognition task and a decision task in different acoustic scenarios, including anechoic and simulated classroom environments with and without multi-talker babble noise. Task difficulty was manipulated by varying the time interval between the decision task and the word recognition task to induce the psychological refractory period effect. Both tasks were also performed individually. The subjective listening effort was assessed using a child-appropriate questionnaire. The experiment used a mixed design with two noise conditions, two acoustic conditions, and four task difficulty levels, tested on both 6- to 7-year-olds and 8- to 10-year-olds. RESULTS: The analysis revealed that subjective listening effort scores were significantly higher in the multi-talker babble condition compared with the quiet condition across both age groups and acoustic settings. However, behavioral measures of listening effort, as indicated by response speed, did not show significant differences between noise conditions. Task difficulty significantly affected response speed, with slower speeds observed at shorter stimulus onset asynchronies, confirming the presence of the psychological refractory period effect. Age-related differences were observed, with older children (8 to 10 years) showing faster response speeds in the word recognition task compared with younger children (6 to 7 years). Error rates in the word recognition task showed a complex four-way interaction between age group, noise condition, acoustic condition, and task difficulty. CONCLUSIONS: Subjective and behavioral measures of listening effort differed with respect to the effects of noise and age. Nevertheless, less behavioral listening effort was observed with increasing age, and subjective listening effort was higher in noisy conditions. Both measures were consistent across acoustic conditions, indicating similar levels of induced effort in anechoic and low reverberant ( ) environments. On the basis of the results, studies investigating behavioral and subjective listening effort jointly are recommended. Regarding speech perception, room effects negatively affected the performance of 6- to 7-year-olds in multi-talker babble noise. In addition, 8- to 10-year-olds showed better speech perception in noise and silence compared with their younger peers. Overall, classroom noise had a negative effect on children's speech perception.