The Effect of Audio on Cognitive Task Performance

The purpose of the study is to examine the effect of white noise or traffic noise on immediate or delayed recall tasks. This study is a 2x2 between-subjects design. Participants are recruited from psychology classes at Ohio Northern University. They will receive course credit for participating in the experiment. Data will be analyzed using a two-way ANOVA. The anticipated outcomes of this study are that the white noise condition will perform better than the traffic noise condition; the immediate recall condition will perform better than the delayed recall condition; the white noise and immediate recall group will have the best performance overall. With this research, we will be able to determine whether or not background noise impacts a person’s memory. This adds to a small, but growing body of literature about the effects of background noise on memory.