M. Jaraiedi et al., THE EFFECTS OF RESPIRATOR USE ON WORKERS PRODUCTIVITY IN A MENTALLY STRESSING TASK, American Industrial Hygiene Association journal, 55(5), 1994, pp. 418-424
This article quantitatively determines the effect of wearing half-face
piece respirators, the most widely used type in industry, on worker pr
oductivity and efficiency in a mentally stressing task. An experiment
investigated the performance of 10 subjects in a task simulating inspe
ction of printed circuit boards. Accuracy and mean reaction time were
tested automatically. Paced and unpaced task simulations were used to
evaluate the effect of wearing the respirator on response times and th
e accuracy of subjects' responses for different product complexities a
nd quality levels. The results indicated that wearing the respirator,
in general, did not affect the speed or accuracy of subjects performin
g simulated inspection tasks. Pacing the task resulted in longer respo
nse times but did not affect accuracy. More complex products resulted
in longer response times but also did not affect accuracy. High produc
t quality resulted in longer response times and a higher miss rate. In
terms of accuracy and reaction times a statistically significant diff
erence was found in the performance of subjects.