The Effect of Noise and Display Orientation on Cognitive Performance

Military personnel encounter a variety of noise environments. During exercises, high intensity noise levels are often encountered. Twenty-four subjects were required to respond to symbols presented under two levels of task difficulty, two levels of presentation rate, two levels of display orientation, and three levels of noise intensity. The purpose of the experiment was to determine whether noise intensity and display orientation had any effect on a short-term memory task. Results showed that continuous white noise at intensity levels of 30, 85, and 105 db had no effect on the shortterm memory task. Presentation rate and task difficulty demonstrated a significant relationship with task performance as did their two-way interaction. This two-way interaction between presentation rate and task difficulty exhibited a different pattern for the two levels of display orientation.