The indoor sound environment and human task performance: A literature review on the role of room acoustics

Jikke Reinten,P Ella Braat-Eggen,Maarten Hornikx,Helianthe S.M Kort,Armin Kohlrausch

doi:10.1016/j.buildenv.2017.07.005

Abstract

A substantial amount of studies have addressed the influence of sound on human performance. In many of these, however, the large acoustic differences between experimental conditions prevent a direct translation of the results to realistic effects of room acoustic interventions. This review identifies those studies which can be, in principle, translated to (changes in) room acoustic parameters and adds to the knowledge about the influence of the indoor sound environment on people. The review procedure is based on the effect room acoustics can have on the relevant quantifiers of the sound environment in a room or space. 272 papers containing empirical findings on the influence of sound or noise on some measure of human performance were found. Of these, only 12 papers complied with this review's criteria. A conceptual framework is suggested based on the analysis of results, positioning the role of room acoustics in the influence of sound on task performance. Furthermore, valuable insights are presented that can be used in future studies on this topic. While the influence of the sound environment on performance is clearly an issue in many situations, evidence regarding the effectiveness of strategies to control the sound environment by room acoustic design is lacking and should be a focus area in future studies.

Highlights

People working indoors are continuously subjected to sound
The main objective of this review is to answer the question to what extent the current knowledge on the effects of sound on human performance can be used to identify the role of room acoustics
A small proportion of the available studies measuring the effect of sound on human performance can be used, and the generalizability of these studies is limited to settings in which source type, sound-task interaction, room type, task type and personal factors are similar to the experimental settings

Summary

Introduction

People working indoors are continuously subjected to sound. Whether working alone in a private office, or amongst a large number of colleagues in an industrial setting; a complete absence of sound never occurs. While letting a person perform a serial recall task when being subjected to either speech at 85 dB(A) or ‘silence’ in a laboratory experiment (for an example see [16]) does provide insight in cognitive processes, it does not help define guidelines for an optimal acoustic (working) environment. These extreme levels are not representative of natural working conditions; room acoustic interventions or design decisions alone would not allow to realize such large differences between conditions. The question arises to what extent the current body of evidence on the effect of sound on task performance can be used to gain insight in the role of room acoustics

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Conclusion