Sense of control and noise sensitivity affect frustration from interfering noise

In order to develop effective strategies to address noise annoyance, it is essential to develop an explanatory model of the psychological mechanism(s) by which noise becomes annoying. Two online studies were conducted in which a total of 193 participants completed speech perception tasks with varying degrees of background noise. Signal-to-noise ratio levels ranged from -2 to -10 dB. The crucial manipulation in both experiments concerned participants' sense of control over the noise level in the task. Dependent measures were task performance, a self-reported measure of frustration with the task, and self-reported sensitivity (trait) to noise. Results showed small but significant effects of noise sensitivity and sense of control on subjective frustration. In both experiments, more noise-sensitive individuals expressed greater frustration than did those reporting less noise sensitivity. In addition, in experiment 2 there was a significant interaction between sense of control and noise level. Listeners under the higher noise-level conditions expressed relatively similar degrees of frustration irrespective of their sense of control, while those under the lower noise-level condition showed lower frustration with greater sense of control. Results support Stallen's [(1999). Noise Health 1(3), 69-79] theoretical framework of noise annoyance, but also suggest the need for further research under more ecologically plausible conditions.