Auditory Flutter Fusion as a Measure of Environment on Mental Stress

Abstract

This research was conducted to evaluate the feasibility of utilizing the deviation in auditory flutter fusion as a predictor of induced mental stress resulting from variations in environmental temperature and illumination. Auditory flutter fusion is a sensory effect tantamount to visual flicker fusion in the auditory sense. The experiment involved the performance of a mental-stress task consisting of solving arithmetic problems. This task, which depends on prior learned information, was selected as the mental task representative of the types performed by office personnel. Six college male students 20–23 years of age were used. Judgments were made of two thresholds (i.e., fusion and flutter) in the prestress and poststress periods. The deviations due to the mental stress induced during the 1-h stress period were determined. The experiment was conducted under the combined environmental effects of three levels of environmental temperature (60°, 75°, and 90°F) and three levels of illumination (20, 50, and 100 fc) with repeated measures. There was no noise induced in the stress period. A completely randomized design, using a factorial arrangement, was employed for treatment by analysis of variance. The results indicate that, regardless of the threshold utilized, temperature (i.e., 60°–90°F) and illumination (i.e., 20–100 fc) have no statistically significant effect on the deviation in auditory flutter fusion.