Investigating the Effect of Continuous and Continual Noise on Students’ Problem Solving Performance

Introduction: Noise is one of the most important sources of life pressure so that results of scholarly research show that troublesome noise, in addition to physical harms such as hearing decrease, hypertension and increased vulnerability, is a stressful environmental agent impacting cognition and cognitive performance and causing precision decrease in brain activities and inconsistency in mental work and comprehension. This inconsistency and carelessness is especially more evident in task performance strategies and distraction than any other aspects. Methods: 36 undergraduate students in Az-zahra University with the age range of 19 – 24 took part in this experimental study. Students’ scores on Eysenc logical test when they were exposed to Tehran traffic noise were obtained and analyzed through one-way ANOVA. Results: Results showed a significant difference between the means of groups in complicated task performance. That is, compared to others, the students exposed to continuous noise had poorer performance in complicated tasks. Conclusion: Results of the study show that complicated cognitive tasks are influenced by unpredictable noise; hence some strategies should be worked out to control the noise in working, thinking and educational environments where people are exposed to this kind of noise while performing cognitive tasks.