Auditory distraction from low-intensity noise: a review of the consequences for learning and workplace environments

What the study found

Low-intensity sound can impair serial recall and other tasks even when it is not subjectively loud.

Limitations

Laboratory paradigms may not map directly onto all real-world work.

Neurodesign interpretation

The acoustic question is what the brain can decode, not only what a meter can register.

Possible design implications

Control intelligibility and temporal variation of speech in concentration spaces.

Why it stays in the corpus

Retain for the mechanism explaining why acoustic distraction is not reducible to decibels.

Study design

Review

Population

Humans across laboratory studies

Setting

Learning and workplace contexts

Field

Cognitive psychology, acoustics

Mechanism

Irrelevant-sound effect, working memory

Spatial variable

Background speech and low-intensity noise

Keywords

irrelevant speech, working memory, acoustics, distraction