¿El ruido afecta a la focalización de la atención visual?

Abstract

Is focused visual attention affected by noise? The goal of the present investigation is to study whether moderate intensity levels of white noise affect performance in a visual discrimination task due to facilitation of focused attention. A modified version of the Eriksen and Eriksen (1974) flankers paradigm was used. Subjects performed the task on a white noise condition (75 dBA) and on silence (44 dBA). Several visual stimuli's variables have been manipulated such as type and number of distractor letters, distance between target letter and distractors and delay time of the target appearance. The results show that the noise increase error rate and increase the reaction times in the focused attention task. The results of several authors that the presence of noise upon 85 dBA facilitates the focusing attention was not obtained in this investigation using lower intensity level of noise.