Do orienting responses predict annoyance from irrelevant sounds?

Abstract

Unexpected sounds are distracting and can be annoying but individuals may differ in susceptibility to them. Irrelevant sounds occurring at sparse temporal intervals induce a psychophysiological orienting response reflecting involuntary capture of attention away from the primary task. We hypothesize that the frequency and/or magnitude of individual listeners’ orienting responses to irrelevant sounds will predict annoyance ratings and task performance in distracting noise. Participants read essays while seated in a comfortable chair in a sound-shielded booth facing a semicircular array of 6 speakers located 1.5 m away at 30°, 60°, and 90° to the left and right. Unintelligible background speech (ISTS) played at 60 dB(A) SPL from each loudspeaker (unsynchronized). At 50–70 s intervals one of 12 non-speech sounds (IADS) played for 6 s from one loudspeaker at approximately 70 dB(A) SPL. Order and location of sounds were randomized but each sound played from each speaker exactly once over the experiment (72 trials, ~80 min). Cardiovascular, electrodermal, electro-ocular, and bilateral posterior auricular muscle activity were recorded from participants to quantify orienting response. Behavioral measures of reading comprehension, noise sensitivity, personality traits, and subjective effort, frustration and annoyance were also collected and will be related to physiological measures.