The impact of external stressors on cognitive-motor performance

What is it about?

The aim was to investigate the effects of illumination, accumulated noise, and task complexity on several average and non-average temporal indicators. Although commonalities exist across stressors, it appears that noise and illumination have a unique signature pattern when all indicators are considered. Namely, the main effect of accumulated noise suggests that even 50% of the recommended daily exposure limit negatively impacts all performance indicators, while the high illumination impairs only the maximal processing speed. When the task complexity is considered, neither do accumulated noise nor illumination degrade the simple task performance, but both stressors decrease the average processing speed while performing the complex test, alongside the maximal processing speed reduction as a function of the accumulated noise. Surprisingly, the combined effects of accumulated noise and high illumination negatively affect only the average processing speed, confirming the average indicator as the most sensitive to the influence of noise and illumination, even though other indicators show clear interaction tendencies. On the other hand, the maximal processing speed proves to detect the effects of illumination that no other indicator has registered showing a clear contribution of non-average measures to the field of studying the effects of external stressors on cognitive and motor performance.

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Why is it important?

The findings showed that various indicators of performance dynamics were diversely affected by external factors, thereby accentuating different guidelines for design of workplaces that include these environmental stressors. This is of outmost importance in work environments that include fast rates of work and intolerance of errors, where human abilities are often one of the safety-critical aspects and can be obstructed by such undesirable working conditions.