Experimental Investigation of Task Performance and Human Vigilance in Different Noise Environments

Abstract

Twelve healthy male college-age students were recruited to investigate the effects of different noise exposure conditions on complex task performance and vigilance. During each noise exposure, the Multi-Attribute Task Battery (MATB) with low, medium, and high mental workloads were conducted in the order designated by the Latin square method. Meanwhile, a psychomotor vigilance test (PVT) was used to evaluate human vigilance. Heart rate variability (HRV) signals were also collected while participants performed the tasks. The generalized additive mixed-effect model (GAMM) results showed that the increased mental workload had an inverted U-shaped effect on MATB task performance. Noise exposure had no significant impact on the overall performance of MATB tasks. However, when exposed to increased noise sharpness at low mental workloads, Tracking Task (TRA) performance significantly decreased, whereas the System Monitoring Task (SYS) performance was significantly improved. In addition, higher noise sound pressure level and sharpness would impair human vigilance, which was reflected in a lower mean sample entropy of HRV and worse performance on the PVT. The results indicated that noise control in the workplace should consider both sound pressure level and sharpness.

Experimental Evaluation of Noise Exposure Effects on Subjective Perceptions and Cognitive Performance

“…The computerized cognitive tests were performed in the following sequence: the PVT task, the 2-back task, the Stroop task, the mental arithmetic task, the hearing threshold test, the duration discrimination task, and the frequency discrimination task. Performances in the operational task were analyzed in a previous study [27,43]; these data, however, are not analyzed in this paper.…”

“…The impact of noise level on human vigilance was also widely investigated due to the high vigilance requirement for operators in automatic human-machine systems. Yang et al [27] reported that higher noise sound pressure levels impair human vigilance, which was reflected in a lower mean sample entropy of heart rate variability and worse performance on a psychomotor vigilance test. Mohammad et al [28] found that mental workload and visual/auditory attention were significantly reduced when the participants were exposed to noise at a level of 95 dBA.…”

“…These sensors were calibrated prior to every use with the HS6020 acoustic calibrator. The room acoustics, such as the space typologies and the position of source and receiver, remained unchanged during the experiments [27,43].…”