On the effect of indoor acoustic conditions in performing cognitive tests in primary school

The quality of the acoustic environment is essential to foster learning as students learn by listening to the teacher. Prolonged exposure to noise during critical learning periods at school can impair development and have a lifelong effect on academic achievement. This is why the problem of noise is of concern in learning environments such as schools. Poor acoustic quality leads to increased cognitive effort that is associated with greater difficulty in processing and remembering information in the short and long term. Preliminary results from the administration of neuropsychological tests under quiet and noise conditions only partially supported the hypothesis that noise negatively impacts children's cognitive performance. In fact, only in one of the two monitored schools the children's performance was affected by the presence of noise during the execution of the tests. In this paper, new results obtained from the correlation between the acoustic parameters and the children's responses to the cognitive load assessment questionnaire are presented to confirm the validity of the hypotheses.