The impact of road traffic noise on cognitive performance in attention-based tasks depends on noise level even within moderate-level ranges

Abstract

Little empirical evidence is available regarding the effects of road traffic noise on cognitive performance in adults, although traffic noise can be heard at many offices and home office workplaces. Our study tested the impact of road traffic noise at different levels (50 dB(A), 60 dB(A), 70 dB(A)) on performance in three tasks that differed with respect to their dependency on attentional and storage functions, as follows: The Stroop task, in which performance relied predominantly on attentional functions (e.g., inhibition of automated responses; Experiment 1: n = 24); a non-automated multistage mental arithmetic task calling for both attentional and storage functions (Exp. 2: n = 18); and verbal serial recall, which placed a burden predominantly on storage functions (Experiment 3: n = 18). Better performance was observed during moderate road traffic noise at 50 dB(A) compared to loud traffic noise at 70 dB(A) in attention-based tasks (Experiments 1-2). This contrasted with the effects of irrelevant speech (60 dB(A)), which was included in the experiments as a well-explored and common noise source in office settings. A disturbance impact of background speech was only given in the two tasks that called for storage functions (Experiments 2-3). In addition to the performance data, subjective annoyance ratings were collected. Consistent with the level effect of road traffic noise found in the performance data, a moderate road traffic noise at 50 dB(A) was perceived as significantly less annoying than a loud road traffic noise at 70 dB(A), which was found, however, independently of the task at hand. Furthermore, the background sound condition with the highest detrimental performance effect in a task was also rated as most annoying in this task, i.e., traffic noise at 70 dB(A) in the Stroop task, and background speech in the mental arithmetic and serial recall tasks.

Increasing Cognitive Interference Modulates the Amplitude of the Auditory Brainstem Response

“…Cognitive interference seems directly involved in auditory processing. Behavioral data suggest that less cognitive interference is related to better speech recognition in noise at more difficult signal-to-noise ratios (Stenbäck et al, 2016), and cognitive interference in the visual modality increased when performing the tasks in noise (Schlittmeier et al, 2015). Whereas the studies discussed in the previous section suggest that cognitive load could affect the ABR by way of cognitive inhibition and sensory gating, none of those studies directly considered cognitive interference as a measure of cognitive inhibition.…”

Assessments of Noise Levels From Noise Sources in Akure, Nigeria: A Preliminary Study

“…The methods used predicted that New York City had the highest number of vehicles and highest noise levels, followed by Los Angeles and Atlanta. In a study conducted by Schlittmeier et al [19] in Germany, they found that people are less annoyed with a road traffic noise 50dBA than a loud road traffic noise of 70dBA. In France, a study conducted by Méline et al [20] showed that there were relationships between transportation noise in the study area (workplace) and blood pressure.…”

Noise-reducing vents for windows in warm, humid, tropical countries

“…A healthy sleep requires a quiet bedroom (Fietze et al, 2016). In office buildings, clerical activities such as reading, writing, typing, and holding meeting require NC 30-35 (equivalent to 40-45 dBA) (Long, 2014;Schlittmeier, Feil, Liebl, & Hellbrück, 2015). Although this is not as low as required in the residential building environment, office rooms still need low noise to support good-quality, productive workspaces.…”