The Effects Of Noise On Psychomotor Efficiency PDF Download

Tracking performance and reaction time to the appearance of a light (red lights) and disappearance of a light (green lights) of highly trained subjects were measured during four experimental conditions. There were two conditions of 85 dB and 110 dB broadband noise exposure, and two conditions in which these noise exposures were combined with 0.25G vertical vibration at 5 Hz. Duration of exposure for each condition was 19 minutes. Vibration was found to have an adverse effect on both the horizontal and vertical dimensions of the tracking task and on reaction time to both sets of lights. Noise had a significant effect, both with and without vibration, but only on the vertical part of the tracking task. On vertical tracking, the detrimental effect of noise was additive to that of vibration when both noise and vibration were presented simultaneously (110dB noise and 0.25G vertical vibration at 5 Hz). (Author).