Psychological effects of combined noise and whole-body vibration: A review and avenues for future research

Abstract

Vehicle drivers are often exposed to noise, whole-body vibration (WBV), and mental loads, but the knowledge of how combined effects from multiple environmental stressors affect mental load and performance is sparse. Studies have shown that the effect of both vibration and noise combined can differ from those of either vibration or noise alone. For example, negative combined effects have been found on some cognitive tasks and impact on subjective ratings (e.g. annoyance and stress). Some of the studies investigating the combined effects of noise and WBVs suffer from low ecological validity, and few have investigated potential effects on cognitive functions. This sharply contrasts with the plethora of studies investigating the effect of noise on performance. It is argued that a potentially promising way to develop further research on combined effects of noise and WBV may be to adopt experimental methods and tasks that proved useful to understand the effect of sound exposure on performance (e.g. serial recall tasks) or of noise after-effects.