Title: Cognitive degradation after exposure to combined noise and whole-body vibration in a simulated vehicle ride

Authors: Jessica K. Ljungberg

Addresses: Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine, Occupational and Environmental Health, Umea University, SE-901 85 Umea, Sweden

Abstract: This study investigated if vehicle noise and whole-body vibrations produce negative after-effects on performance in an attention task and on ratings of alertness, difficulty, and annoyance. The task was applied before and after exposure, and after a rest. Participants had degraded performance immediately after exposure in all conditions, but no effect was found after the rest. No main effect was found between exposure conditions on performance, it was concluded that the degraded performance dependent on time was caused by fatigue. The results also suggested lower ratings of alertness and higher ratings of annoyance in the vibration condition compared to the control condition.

Keywords: vehicle vibration; vehicle noise; cognitive degradation; after-effects; alertness; annoyance; whole-body vibrations; ride simulation; performance degradation; fatigue.

DOI: 10.1504/IJVNV.2007.014900

International Journal of Vehicle Noise and Vibration, 2007 Vol.3 No.2, pp.130 - 142

Published online: 16 Aug 2007 *

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