Working With Environmental Noise and Noise-Cancelation: A Workload Assessment With EEG and Subjective Measures

Frontiers in Neuroscience

Jan-Niklas Voigt-Antons¹  Sebastian Möller¹  Robert P. Spang²  Pablo Prietz²  Kerstin Pieper²  Markus Vaalgamaa³  Erkki Paajanen³ 

[1] German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence, Berlin, Germany;Quality and Usability Lab, Institute of Software Engineering and Theoretical Computer Science, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Berlin Institute of Technology, Berlin, Germany;Tampere Wireless Headset Audio Lab, Finland Research Center, Huawei Technologies Oy (Finland) Co., Ltd., Tampere, Finland;

关键词: mental workload;    ambient noise;    noise-canceling;    event-related potentials;    EEG frequency;    subjective measures;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fnins.2021.771533

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

As working and learning environments become open and flexible, people are also potentially surrounded by ambient noise, which causes an increase in mental workload. The present study uses electroencephalogram (EEG) and subjective measures to investigate if noise-canceling technologies can fade out external distractions and free up mental resources. Therefore, participants had to solve spoken arithmetic tasks that were read out via headphones in three sound environments: a quiet environment (no noise), a noisy environment (noise), and a noisy environment but with active noise-canceling headphones (noise-canceling). Our results of brain activity partially confirm an assumed lower mental load in no noise and noise-canceling compared to noise test condition. The mean P300 activation at Cz resulted in a significant differentiation between the no noise and the other two test conditions. Subjective data indicate an improved situation for the participants when using the noise-canceling technology compared to “normal” headphones but shows no significant discrimination. The present results provide a foundation for further investigations into the relationship between noise-canceling technology and mental workload. Additionally, we give recommendations for an adaptation of the test design for future studies.

【 授权许可】

Unknown