The effect of auditory stimuli on cognitive tasks: Objective performance and subjective ratings
Last modified: 2011-09-02
Abstract
Two experiments were conducted to examine the relationship between the objective and subjective effects of disruption caused by auditory stimuli on daily cognitive tasks. Reading with/without proofreading task (for Experiment 1) and reading with/without map task (for Experiment 2) were used as cognitive activities. The speech and office noise were used as auditory stimuli for Experiment 1 and 2. The increase of recall error rate under each auditory condition was used as an objective index of disruption. Two subjective indexes, self estimated performance and self rated annoyance under each auditory stimulus were used as a subjective index to assess the perceived adverse effect of the auditory stimuli. The error rate increased significantly under the auditory stimuli conditions in the reading with proofreading task (Experiment 1) and reading with/without map tasks (Experiment 2). The error rate increased significantly in the reading with proofreading task only under the office noise condition. The results show that estimated performance was generally in agreement with the recall error rate pattern. On the other hand, the annoyance ratings did not match recall performance. The agreement and discrepancy of objective and subjective indexes should be investigated in future experiments.
References
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[3] Zimmer, K., Ghani, J., & Ellermeier, W., “The role of task interference and exposure in judging noise and annoyance”. Journal of Sound and Vibration, 311:1039-1051, 2008.
[4] Schlittmeier, S. J., Hellbrück, J., Thaden, R., & Volӓnder, M., “The impact of background speech varying in intelligibility,: Effects on cognitive performance and perceived disturbance”, Ergonomics,51(5):719-736,2008.
[5] Fried, Y., Melamed, S. , and Ben-David, H. A., “The joint effects of noise, job complexity, and gender on employee sickness absence: An exploratory study across 2 organizations - the CORDIS study”, Journal of Occupational & Organizational Psychology, 75:131-144, 2002
[6] Leather, P., Beale, D., and Sullivan, L., “Noise, psychosocial stress and their interaction in the workplace”, Journal of Environmental Psychology, 23:213-222, 2003.
[7] Donald, I., and Siu, O. L., “Moderating the stress impact of environmental conditions: The effect of organizational commitment in Hong Kong and China”, Journal of Environmental Psychology, 21:353-368, 2001.
[8] Knez I., and Hygge, S., “Irrelevant speech and indoor lightning : Effects on cognitive performance and self-reported affect”, Applied Cognitive Psychology, 16:709-718.
[9] Miyahara, M., and Goshiki, T., “Effects of irrelevant auditory stimuli on a text recognition and text recall task”, Psychologia, 50:133-149, 2007
[10] Grandjean, E., “Fitting the Task to the Man”, London:Taylor and Francis.
[11] Kahneman, D., “Attention and effort”, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.