Impact of Background Noise on Visual Accommodation and Reading Performance

Noise, considered the second leading cause of environmental pollution, negatively affects health and cognitive performance, while music may enhance concentration. This study evaluates how different auditory environments influence the dynamics of the accommodative response, reading performance and subjective perceptions during a sustained near-vision reading task.

Twenty-five healthy young adults participated in three randomized experimental sessions under pleasant (water sounds and preferred music), unpleasant (traffic noise and disliked music), and control (silence and classical music) auditory conditions. During each session, participants performed a 5-minute reading task at 50 cm while accommodative responses were recorded using the Grand Seiko WAM-5500 autorefractor. Perceived visual fatigue and reading performance were also assessed.

The lag of accommodation was sensitive to the auditory stimuli (p = 0.015), where a higher lag of accommodation was observed for the unpleasant auditory condition compared to the control (corrected p-value = 0.017). No statistically significant differences were found for the variability of accommodation (p > 0.05). Reading performance showed statistically significant differences for the auditory conditions (p = 0.042), with a higher number of words read in the control condition compared to the unpleasant condition (corrected p = 0.037). Symptoms showed a lower activation level, greater fatigue and less comfort in the unpleasant condition in comparison to the control condition (p = 0.037, p = 0.039, p < 0.001, respectively).

These findings emphasize that for efficient reading and optimal visual performance, unpleasant sounds such as traffic noise should be avoided, and silence or classical music is preferable.