Young children's understanding of the effect of noise and interest level on learning

Two studies examined children's understanding that both noise level and interest level can affect learning. In Study 1, 48 children aged 4 to 7 judged the amount of learning in nine situations created by a factorial combination of three levels of each variable and in six situations in which there was information about only one variable. Interest level affected judgments at all ages. Noise level was used to some extent by ages 6-7 when it was presented alone, but was used when combined with interest level only if it had previously been presented alone. Using a similar design, Study 2 extended an earlier study of grade school children (Miller, 1982) by making noise levels more discriminable and interest levels less discriminable and by varying order of presentation. The 40 second graders used both noise and interest information regardless of order but, as in the other studies, interest was weighed much more heavily. Results were discussed in terms of theoretical accounts of how information is integrated to make causal inferences.