On interpretation of the effects of noise on cognitive performance: the fallacy of confusing the definition of an effect with the explanation of that effect

Frontiers in Psychology

Patrik Sörqvist¹ 

关键词: interpretation;    explanation;    definition;    circular argument;    cognitive noise effects;    noise;    irrelevant sound effect;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00754

学科分类：心理学（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

The effects of noise on human beings are of interest to specialists across many academic disciplines including medicine, economics, and psychology (Basner et al., 2015). In cognitive psychology, people's susceptibility to distraction by background sound/noise is often used as an instrument to understand the nature of selective attention and short-term memory, and many theories have been proposed to explain why people tend to perform better in silence compared with when there is noise in the background (Hughes, 2014). For example, one explanation of noise effects that has been offered is that noise captures attention. On this view, the reason why performance on a visual task (e.g., proofreading) is impaired by background noise, is that the locus of attention is diverted away from the target information (e.g., the visual text material) and is instead reallocated to the sound, causing interruption to the task (Bell et al., 2012). A competing explanation is that similar processes partake in the involuntary analysis of the background noise and the voluntary elaboration of the task material, causing a conflict and performance decrements (Macken, 2014). A third explanation, offered in the context of noise effects on complex cognition, such as that on reading comprehension or word processed writing, is that noise impairs subcomponent abilities (e.g., working memory) that is assumed to underpin the complex behavior (Jahncke et al., 2013).

【 授权许可】

CC BY