What is it about?
Irrelevant background sounds are known to have a negative effect on our mental performance, but is it possible to predict the magnitude of this effect? This paper proposes an algorithm to do exactly that, while comparing the results with other algorithms proposed in the literature.
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Why is it important?
We propose a model which follows a psychological hypothesis that attempts to define the reason behind the working memory performance drop under background sounds, when compared to silence. Predicting the impact of the extraneous sounds on cognitive performance is important, for example, when designing open-plan offices, classrooms or designing the machinery sounds in complex sonic environments like operation rooms in hospitals and airplane cockpits where each sound delivers fatal information. Furthermore, a successful prediction model requires a complete understanding of the phenomenon and therefore will give more information about the main reasons behind cognitive decline induced by background sounds.
Perspectives
The research field where this publication belongs to is a boutique field by itself and is typically positioned closely with a major field, e.g. room acoustics, auditory cognition, car acoustics. With the release of this paper, I hope to re-trigger certain questions and concepts in the overlapping zones of these fields while delivering a definition of a relatively new model which scientists may find useful.
Toros Ufuk Senan
Koninklijke Philips Electronics NV
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Cognitive disruption by noise-vocoded speech stimuli: Effects of spectral variation, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, March 2018, Acoustical Society of America (ASA),
DOI: 10.1121/1.5026619.
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