boys and girls who attend schools with noisier traffic show slower cognitive developmentaccording to a study by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), published today in the journal PloS Medicine.

The study that found that however, the noise level in the house does not affect according to the results of tests on working memory and attention, this was done in 38 schools in Barcelona.

The main conclusion of the study is that traffic noise in schools adversely affects the development of memory performance and concentration of attention of younger students.

The study was led by Maria Foraster and Jordi Sunyer, researchers at ISGlobal, a center supported by the La Caixa Foundation. participation of 2,680 boys and girls aged seven to ten.

To assess the possible impact of road noise on cognitive development, scientists focus on two skills that develop rapidly during preadolescence and which are essential for learning and school performance: attention span and working memory.

According to the researchers, Attention concentration allows you to selectively pay attention to certain stimuli. or focus on a specific task for long periods of time, while working memory or working memory is the system that allows you to store and process information in short periods of time.

When it is also necessary to continuously and efficiently process the information stored in working memory, it is called complex working memory.

The field work lasted 12 months from 2012 to 2013, during which the students took cognitive tests four times, and the scientists simultaneously measured the noise outside 38 schools, as well as in the yards and in the classrooms.

After one year of study, the development of working memory, complex working memory, and concentration was slower for those students who attended schools with more noisy traffic.

For example, a 5 decibel increase in external noise resulted in an 11.4% slowdown in working memory development compared to the average and a 23.5% slowdown in complex working memory development to the middle.

Similarly, exposure to an additional 5 decibels of external road noise resulted in a 4.8% slower than average attention span.

Our study supports the hypothesis that childhood is a vulnerable period

“Our study supports the hypothesis that childhood is a vulnerable period when external stimuli such as noise can affect the rapid process of cognitive development that occurs before adolescence,” Sunyer said.

Based on a map of road noise in Barcelona in 2012, the researchers also estimated the average noise level in each participant’s home.

However, in this case, they did not observe an association between residential noise and cognitive development.

“This may be because noise exposure in schools is more harmful because it affects vulnerable windows of concentration and learning processes. On the other hand, while noise measurements were taken in schools, estimates were made in homes based on a noise map that could be less accurate and only reflect outside noise,” said Maria Foraster.

This study expands on the impact of transport on children’s cognitive development that has been observed so far in schools exposed to aircraft noise and in schools exposed to air pollution from traffic.