Noise and attention span.
The effect of emotional arousal, as induced by broad-band noise, upon breadth of attention was investigated. Four intensity levels were employed (no noise, 75 db, 85 db, and 100 db). Two of the tasks, Stroop color-word test, rod-and-frame test, required narrowed attention and the third, Tsai-Partington pathways test, required broader attention. Arousal level did not significantly affect performance on the rod-and-frame test or the pathways test, althouth in the latter a curvilinear trend was suggested. A complex relationship between arousal level and Stroop performance was obtained; performance of the 85-db group was superior to that of other groups, which did not differ significantly from one another. Results were discussed in terms of Easterbrook's (1959) arousal hypothesis.
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D001143:Arousal; D001288:Attention; D003118:Color Perception; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D005364:Field Dependence-Independence; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009622:Noise; D010897:Pitch Discrimination; D011581:Psychological Tests