The Effects of Ambient Noise on Vigilance Performance

The effects of continuous noise versus intermittent noise on subjects performing an audiovisual checking task were examined. Although there was no difference between the effects of the two kinds of noise on total errors, intermittent noise produced a larger number of omission errors than did continuous noise. There were no differences in overall vigilance performance between male and female observers. There was a decrement in performance with time-at-work typically found in other vigilance studies.