Physiological orienting response, noise sensitivity, and annoyance from irrelevant background sound

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. 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 50 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 loudspeakers 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 minutes). Electrodermal activity (skin conductance response magnitude) served to quantify orienting response (distraction). Preliminary results from 19 participants show a non-significant trend consistent with the hypothesis that distraction contributes to noise induced annoyance (frustration). Interactions between noise sensitivity, personality traits, distraction and annoyance are also discussed.