White noise may improve attention and memory in children

Children with short attention spans may learn better with the assistance of white noise.

A report published in the Behavioral and Brain Functions journal analyzed the effects of white noise on 51 children. It was discovered to slightly inhibit learning in children who could normally pay attention, but improved memory function in children with difficulties paying attention.

Students were asked to recall information from a list of items read out loud both with and without white noise. Researchers guess ‘stochastic resonance’ to be an explanation for performance increases in certain children. Weak signals beneath the threshold of hearing usually become detectable upon the addition of random noise or white noise.

Researchers in Sweden conducted experiments at a Norwegian school. Performance improved significantly for children classified by their teachers as inattentive and declined drastically for children explained to be attentive, while noise and volume levels increased.

This study may be a simple solution to improve learning in students with attention issues.

This report is the first to create a link between both stochastic resonance and noise and memory or attention functions.