A. Kjellberg et al., THE EFFECTS OF NONPHYSICAL NOISE CHARACTERISTICS, ONGOING TASK AND NOISE SENSITIVITY ON ANNOYANCE AND DISTRACTION DUE TO NOISE AT WORK, Journal of environmental psychology, 16(2), 1996, pp. 123-136
Factors influencing the subjective responses to noise were studied in
a group of 439 persons working in offices, laboratories or industries.
In each person's workplace noise was measured. Information about resp
onses to noise and factors that might affect annoyance were collected
in questionnaires. An annoyance and a distraction index were formed on
the basis of a factor analysis. Annoyance was found mainly to be rela
ted to sound level, self-rated 'necessity' of the noise, hearing statu
s and sex. Distraction was most strongly related to degree of self-con
trol of the noise and noise predictability. The most critical noise so
urces for the annoyance response were other machines than those used b
y oneself, whereas telephone signals had the largest effect on distrac
tion. (C) 1996 Academic Press Limited