Effects of noise on memory performance in adults

Abstract: Previous studies have shown negative effects of noise on cognitive performance. However,these effects on memory have been less examined. This study was set out to investigate theeffect of noise on working memory as well as prospective memory in an adult population.One experiment group comprised of university students approached at the Umeå UniversityCampus volunteered for this study (​N​=30, ​M​=24.26 years of age). A reversed digit spanmemory test and an event-based prospective memory test were used to measure workingmemory and prospective memory under silent and noise condition. Results showed thatparticipants had significantly poorer performance on working memory task in noise conditioncompared to silent condition but not for the prospective memory task. Keywords: working memory, prospective memory, noise