The effects of noise, cognitive set and gender on mental arithmetic performance

Recent research on the effects of moderate noise seems to indicate that the main changes in performance are elicited by shifts in the adopted strategy. The present experiment investigated this effect by directly manipulating the cognitive set and following male and female subjects' performances on an arithmetic task under two levels of noise. The results showed that noise significantly impaired rate of work but has no detrimental effect on accuracy. Noise clearly reduced the pace at which female subjects were working, but it hardly affected that of male subjects. The differential response pattern of men and women in quiet and noise when working under different cognitive sets resulted in a significant interaction between these factors. These findings support the idea that the effects of noise are mediated by a constellation of factors whose control is necessary for a realistic evaluation of performance in noise.