Assessment of Noise Pollution Effects on Mental Task



Nassiri P¹ ; Behzadi MH² ; Majidinejad L³
Source: ICSV 2016 - 23rd International Congress on Sound and Vibration: From Ancient to Modern Acoustics Published:2016

Abstract

The effect of noise pollution on mental efficiency has been randomly investigated. 25 Participants including 14 female and 11 male has been selected as case group. The case has a wide variety of age sampled ranged from 20 to 65 years old with different education levels. The samples were expose to three different noise types (conversation, traffic noise and white noise) in three sound levels (50 dBA, 70 dBA and 90 dBA). The effects of these different noise levels on each participants were not similar and the effects of noise pollution increased by increasing the sound level in majority of cases. Conversation in low level had no effects on mental efficiency but by increasing sound level mental efficiency decreased. The three levels of traffic noise had no significant difference on mental efficiency. White noise has a similar behavior such as conversation that is by increasing sound level, mental efficiency decreased. By comparing the results in different kind of noise and levels, it can be concluded that the effect of white noise is higher than conversation and traffic noise. Apparently age and education have some effects on mental efficiency whereas gender has no statistically effect on mental efficiency.