Toward meaningful noise research.
The present review considers a series of studies of noise conducted in collaboration with Dr. Michel Loeb. This review attempts to provide a theoretical perspective as well as to summarize the most important findings of those studies. The work reviewed shows that noise effects interact with other variables, such that a noise effect on one sex is reversed for the other, and is also reversed at different times of the day. A second experiment confirmed this finding with a different arithmetic task. Further work indicated parallels between noise and fatigue, with aftereffects depending upon both work and noise. The final experiment repeated some of these findings with a different task battery of information processing tasks while showing that noise effects further depend on the meaningfulness of the noise background.
Holding
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DH
Department of Psychology, University of Louisville, KY 40292.
Baker
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MA
D002940:Circadian Rhythm; D005221:Fatigue / Q000209:etiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009622:Noise / Q000009:adverse effects; D012107:Research Design; D012737:Sex Factors; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis