Noise and Attention Span
- 1 June 1977
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Perceptual and Motor Skills
- Vol. 44 (3) , 919-922
- https://doi.org/10.2466/pms.1977.44.3.919
Abstract
The effect of emotional arousal, as induced by broad-band noise, upon breadth of attention was investigated. Four intensity levels were employed (no noise, 75 db, 85 db, and 100 db). Two of the tasks, Stroop color-word test, rod-and-frame test, required narrowed attention and the third, Tsai-Partington pathways test, required broader attention. Arousal level did not significantly affect performance on the rod-and-frame test or the pathways test, although in the latter a curvilinear trend was suggested. A complex relationship between arousal level and Stroop performance was obtained; performance of the 85-db group was superior to that of other groups, which did not differ significantly from one another. Results were discussed in terms of Easterbrook's (1959) arousal hypothesis.This publication has 8 references indexed in Scilit:
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