Performance
Reading, attention, problem solving and memorization are among the cognitive effects most strongly affected by noise.
It is been shown, mainly in workers and children, that noise can adversely affect performance of cognitive tasks. Although noise induced arousal may produce better performance in simple tasks in the short term, cognitive performance substantially deteriorates for complex tasks.
Reading, attention, problem solving and memorization are among the cognitive effects most strongly affected by noise. Noise can also act as a distracting stimulus and impulsive noise events may produce disruptive effects as a result of startle responses.
Noise exposure may also produce after effects that negatively affect performance. In schools around airports, children chronically exposed to aircraft noise under-perform in proof reading, in persistence on challenging puzzles, in tests of reading acquisition and in motivational capabilities. It is crucial to recognize that some of the adaptation strategies to aircraft noise, and the effort to maintain task performance, come at a price. Noise may also produce impairments and increase in errors at work and some accidents may be an indicator of performance deficits.
