White Noise May Boost Attention in Children

Oct. 3, 2010— -- Inattentive schoolchildren performed significantly better when white noise was played during class, results of a small study showed.

The background noise had the opposite effect on normally attentive children, whose classroom performance deteriorated.

The study produced no evidence that background noise had a beneficial effect on hyperactivity, investigators reported online in Behavioral and Brain Functions.

Read this story on www.medpagetoday.com.

"This finding could have practical applications, offering noninvasive and nonpharmacological help to improve school results in children with attentional problems," Göran B.W. Söderland of Stockholm University in Sweden said in a statement.

A large volume of experimental and clinical evidence has demonstrated that cognitive processing is readily disturbed by distracting environmental stimuli. Some people, such as individuals with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), are especially vulnerable to distraction, the authors noted.

However, some investigators have reported contradictory findings, showing that certain task-irrelevant noise can improve performance in children with attention deficits.

The explanation for the paradoxical effects of background noise remains unclear. One line of thought holds that background stimulation leads to increased arousal, which counteracts boredom.

Another model relies on principles of stochastic resonance, or noise-improved signaling, the authors continued. Detection of sensory signals offers one example. A weak signal or tone stimulus that is below the hearing threshold becomes detectable when random noise is added to the signal.

The theory of stochastic resonance also holds that the effects vary among individuals. The differences are linked to attention ability and neurotransmission in such a way that inattentive people require more external noise for proper cognitive function, the authors added.

ADHD is distinguished by low tonic dopamine levels that result in excessive reactivity to environmental stimuli. The moderate-brain-arousal model suggests that the dopamine-poor brain requires higher input noise to function to full potential. External white noise might compensate for behavior dysfunction related to impaired dopamine transmission.