Effect of Auditory Interference on Visual Simple Reaction Time

Background Reaction time is the time between the application of the stimulus and the response. It is a physical skill based on human performance. Various factors like age, gender, distractions, personality, alcohol, etc. can affect the reaction time to a stimulus. Objective The objective was to determine whether auditory interference affects the visual simple reaction time or not. Method This is a quantitative, observational, cross-sectional study done at Kathmandu University School of Medical Sciences, Pre-Clinical Basic Science Block, Chaukot from April 2017 to June 2017. Total 120 participants who fulfilled the inclusion criteria and who were willing to participate in the study were included. Visual simple reaction time task was estimated alone without any interference followed by auditory interference using a software Deary Liewald reaction timer v3.10 in the laptop. The task was to press the spacebar as soon as the stimulus appeared in the screen of the laptop. Visual Reaction Time was recorded 20 times and the average of 20 recordings was given by the software itself which was later considered for statistical analysis. Then difference between the two values was reviewed using paired t-test since the data was normally distributed. Result The mean of visual simple reaction time for our study population was 298.93±37.12 milliseconds and the visual simple reaction time after auditory interference was 299.77±40.15 milliseconds. The difference between visual simple reaction time alone and after auditory interference was not significant (p=0.993). Conclusion This study shows that auditory interference doesn't affect the simple visual reaction time; so the person can perform daily activities even if there is some kind of auditory interference at the same time.