The Effects of Sound Interference on Soldiers Cognitive Performance, Workload Assessment and Emotional Responses.

Twenty-three male soldiers were exposed to continuous (7 kHz sine wave), non-continuous (irregular 7 kHz sine wave) and no-sound conditions during performance of cognitive tasks on a tablet computer. Tasks were sustained attention to response (SART) task and Baddeley’s 3 min reasoning task. Task performance, workload assessment (NASA-TLX) and emotional responses (pleasantness and arousal) were assessed after each sound-task condition. We expected that disturbing and task irrelevant background sound would interference concentration and cognitive function and therefore have detrimental effect on performance, workload assessment and emotional responses. We found no effects on cognitive performance. However, in connection with subjective assessments, (1) workload was significantly higher during non-continuous sound conditions as compared to continuous and no-sound conditions and (2) no-sound conditions were experienced more pleasant and less arousing than the sound conditions. The results are of interest when considering working in noisy environments, as well as cognitive resilience to interference.