Sound Masking

Sound Masking

Reviewed by Faisal Zaidi

Covering a background voice with another steady sound.

What it is

In an experiment with 30 students, masking a single voice reduced its impairment of serial short-term memory, and nature sounds reduced it most. It is drawn from work by Helena Jahncke and colleagues (2016).

In effect

In the article on why we work better in cafés, headphones with nothing playing made no difference, while a masking sound did.

What it does not say

It was tested with 30 students, one background voice and a memory task. Headphones with nothing playing made no difference. It does not say that masking helps every kind of task or every noise.

Sources

  1. Jahncke, H., Björkeholm, P., Marsh, J. E., Odelius, J., & Sörqvist, P. (2016). Office noise: Can headphones and masking sound attenuate distraction by background speech? Work.