Research Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology, University College London, London, UK.
Research Department of Experimental Psychology, University College London, London, UK.
Ergonomics. 2021 May;64(5):593-599. doi: 10.1080/00140139.2020.1854352. Epub 2020 Dec 15.
This study was concerned with the effects of acoustic distraction at work. Using a within-subject study we aimed to investigate the effect of background distraction on cognitive performance. In the presence of silence, white noise, and sirens, 55 fluent English speakers completed three equivalent variations of a reading comprehension task. As predicted, there was a significant main effect of background sound, with poorer performance in the presence of distraction (particularly sirens), but no interaction was found between distraction and extraversion. Thus, the findings partially replicated previous research in terms of distraction but were inconsistent with regard to the Eysenckian theory of arousal differences between introverts and extraverts. Implications of the effect of sirens on those they are not designed to alert are considered. Limitations of this study are also considered. This study was concerned with whether white noise and the sound of sirens affects reading comprehension. We found that compared to doing a highly involving and demanding cognitive task in silence, siren noise has the most significant negative effect on performance. Compared to working silence, white noise also reduced the efficiency of text comprehension. There were no introvert-extravert effects.
这项研究关注的是工作中的声音干扰的影响。我们采用了被试内研究，旨在探究背景干扰对认知表现的影响。在安静、白噪声和警笛声的环境下，55 名英语流利的参与者完成了阅读理解任务的三个等效变体。正如预测的那样，背景声音有显著的主效应，干扰（尤其是警笛声）时表现更差，但干扰和外向性之间没有发现交互作用。因此，这些发现部分复制了之前关于干扰的研究结果，但与内向者和外向者之间唤醒差异的艾森克理论不一致。还考虑了警笛声对其设计目的之外的人的影响。该研究也考虑了其局限性。 这项研究关注的是白噪声和警笛声是否会影响阅读理解。我们发现，与在安静环境下进行高度投入和高要求的认知任务相比，警笛声对表现的负面影响最大。与安静环境相比，白噪声也降低了文本理解的效率。没有内向-外向的效果。
