Mobile work has become an increasingly important job environment in recent years, particularly for job profiles that require predominantly cognitive processes. Flexible work locations might offer advantages for flexibility, but also introduce new challenges like uncontrollable background noise, which can interfere with well-being, increase stress, and affect mental load. This study investigates the impact of realistic background noise on cognitive performance and mental load using electroencephalography (EEG) in a laboratory study.
Twenty participants completed both an easy and a moderate condition of the n-back task while being exposed to silent and noisy stimuli that should be fully ignored. The noisy stimuli contained a high-speed passenger train soundscape including irrelevant speech, machine noise, and other realistic ambient sounds. Both stimuli were presented through headphones at approximately 60 dB(A). Performance data and event related potentials (ERP) from the EEG have been recorded and analyzed with regard to differences between the experimental conditions. Participants were divided into two groups of noise sensitivity to examine differences between them.
Analysis of reaction time and ERP components indicates the influence of noise on performance and the mental load imposed by the cognitive task. In addition, noise sensitive participants show a stronger neural response to the presented visual stimuli.
These findings may provide insights into the hidden sources of cognitive workload in at a first glance harmless mobile work environment. Moreover, they offer an understanding of the neuronal activation as related to noise perceptual filtering processes, which are crucial for examining the non-auditory effects of noise.