Open AccessOpen-plan office noise: The susceptibility and suitability of different cognitive tasks for work in the presence of irrelevant speech
Author(s) -
Helena Jahncke
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
noise and health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1998-4030
pISSN - 1463-1741
DOI - 10.4103/1463-1741.104901
Subject(s) - quiet , computer science , noise (video) , working memory , work (physics) , plan (archaeology) , speech recognition , cognition , open plan , cognitive psychology , psychology , artificial intelligence , mechanical engineering , physics , management , archaeology , quantum mechanics , neuroscience , engineering , economics , image (mathematics) , history
The aim of the present study was to test which tasks are suitable for work in open-plan offices according to how susceptible they are to disruption produced by the mere presence of irrelevant speech. The tasks were chosen to tap fundamental capacities of office work involving: search for relevant information, remembering material, counting, and generation of words. The hypothesis was that tasks requiring semantic processing should be impaired by irrelevant speech. To determine the magnitude of performance decrease, two sound conditions (quiet, irrelevant speech) were compared. The results showed that tasks based on episodic short-term-memory and rehearsal of the presented material were more sensitive to disruption by irrelevant speech than tasks which did not require rehearsal or were based on long-term memory retrieval. The present study points to the inappropriateness of tasks, such as information search and remembering of material, for work environments within which irrelevant speech is ubiquitous.