Classroom Acoustic Settings and Speech - Teacher's Voice and Activity-Based Influences on Children's Language Processing and Listening Effort

• Applicant: Professorin Dr.-Ing. Janina Fels
• Subject Area: Acoustics
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 560371032

This research proposal focuses on the impact of classroom acoustic settings and teachers' speech on children's language processing and listening effort. Classrooms are often characterized by high levels of background noise, reverberation, and poor signal-to-noise ratios, which can significantly hinder children's ability to perceive and process speech. The proposal seeks to develop an ecologically valid paradigm to assess primary school children's spoken language processing under realistic classroom conditions. The study will model and auralize various classroom acoustic settings to simulate real-life conditions and examine the effects of activity-based acoustic features and teachers' speech adaptations on children's listening abilities. The project is structured around four main objectives. First, it aims to identify and characterize activity-based classroom situations, describing their acoustic characteristics and modeling them in acoustic virtual reality. Then, a database of classroom activity-based acoustic settings is created, and their realism is evaluated through surveys with teachers. Second, the proposal seeks to develop and evaluate a child-appropriate paradigm to examine children's spoken language processing and listening effort under realistic activity-based classroom conditions. This paradigm considers acoustic adaptations such as background noise type and speaker distribution as well as binaural technology to achieve plausible listening scenarios. Third, the study will include activity-based talkers' speech adaptations, recording new speech material that maps dynamic changes in teachers' speech and voice use with changing contexts. These activity-dependent speech adaptations will be incorporated in the newly developed paradigm to assess their influence on children’s language processing and listening effort. Finally, the research will evaluate developmental differences in listening effort and speech reception between younger and older primary school children, assessing the impact of activity-based acoustic settings and voice changes. By addressing these objectives, the research seeks to provide insights into optimizing classroom environments to support children's learning and communication. The outcomes are expected to enhance understanding of classroom communication dynamics and improve educational strategies for children in noisy environments. The project will utilize advanced virtual acoustic reality methods to synthesize and reproduce sound environments that are perceptually comparable to real-world acoustic events. This research is likely to be extendable to children's spoken language processing in all kinds of complex acoustic environments, contributing to a better understanding of how acoustic conditions affect children's cognitive and linguistic development.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: USA
• Cooperation Partners: Professorin Dr. Ann Bradlow; Professorin Erin M. Picou