Influence of Speech Exposure on Working Memory: Exploring Reverberation Time in Open Plan Office Environments

Paper in proceeding, 2024

When working in open-plan offices, exposure to surrounding sounds has been shown to negatively impact performance, with background speech identified as a significant contributor. The changing state characteristic of the acoustical environment is hypothesized to underlie this decline in performance. Thus, reducing variability in the sound field is deemed beneficial. The objective of this study is to investigate whether an increase in reverberation time affects working memory during exposure to speech. Laboratory-based listening experiments were conducted, wherein participants performed operation span (OSPAN) tests while exposed to various conditions of binaural speech signals. Conditions included T30 = 0.2 s, with and without background noises typical of open offices, T30 = 1.0 s, and a silent case. Subjective evaluations were gathered using the NASA Task Load Index (TLX) and the Weinstein Noise Sensitivity Scale (WNSS). Results indicate a consistent association between speech exposure and performance decline in working memory, irrespective of reverberation time, where performances in the silent case relative to other cases were statistically robust. The subjective evaluations show similar trends as the objective. The findings emphasize the need to reduce speech exposure in open-plan offices.