The effects of office noise on performance response time for safety critical condition Download PDF

Background: Noise is one of the factors which can effect on performance speed. These effects may depend on presser level and type of the noise. Non-auditory effects of noise in office is evidently necessary to obtain an appropriate assessment of the negative and positive values to employee. Method: Sixty male subjects participated in this study. The computerized Stroop test was designed and used to measure selective attention under different noise condition including base, white, blue, pink noises and noise in 125,250,500,1000,2000,4000 Hz frequencies. Results: the results showed that mean answering time increases noticeably at some frequency exposures. There is a significant difference in mean answering time 1 by the exposure to base noise and all of 8 noise types (p<0.005), except for white noise. Regarding mean answering time 1, there is a significant difference between mean answering time 2 in exposure to base noise and all of 8 noise types (p<0.005), except for the 4 kHz noise. The most noticeable effects on mean answering times where in 1, 2 kHz noise exposure, compared with base noise condition. Conclusion: The results of study showed there is differences between noise type effects on performance and performance reaction declined more in 1, 2 kHz frequencies. This study demonstrated some of low level noises can declined performance speed.