An Eye Movement Study On The Influence Of Different Background Sounds On Pupils' Solving Difficult-to-easy Mathematical Application Problems

Irrelevant speech effect refers to the interference effect of background speech unrelated to the current task on the ongoing cognitive task.Some studies have found that irrelevant background sounds can interfere with short-term memory and reading tasks.The problemsolving process of word problems includes problem representation and problem solving.Problem representation process includes reading and memory,while problem solving process includes memory and operation.It is a complex process,involving cognitive processes such as reading,working memory and problem solving.Pupils' attention is easily distracted and they are easily disturbed by the surrounding things,the background sound which always in the external environment is one of the interfering factors which will affect the learning effect.Therefore,in the process of word problems solving,the influence of different background sounds on it is an important practical topic.At present,the conclusion of the effect of different characteristics of background sound on word problem solving is not consistent,and previous studies usually focused on the perspective of the results of solving problems,and lacked of real-time and dynamic investigation on the problem solving process.Therefore,based on previous studies,this study selected four sound conditions: meaningful speech,meaningless speech,noise and silence,and combined with eyetracking technology to investigate the influence of different background sounds on word problem solving.The current research utilized 4(background sound types: meaningful speech,meaningless speech,noise,quiet)×2(title difficulty: difficult and easy)two-factor experimental design to investigate the influence of different sound conditions on the difficult-easy word problems solving of 35 fifth-grade students.The results showed that :(1)Meaningful speech interfere with the process of solving word problems,while meaningless speech do not affect it,indicating that the semantic in the speech background sound is the main factor which causing the interference.(2)Noise has a certain promoting effect on the word problem solving and is adjusted by the difficulty of the problems.It is mainly reflected in that appropriate noise,which without semantic and phonetic,can improve people's cognitive processing efficiency during solving difficult problems.