Mostafa Mohammadian; Reza Kazemi; Sina Mollahoseini; Andy Smith
Abstract
Background: In open-plan office environments, irrelevant speech noise (ISN) is a common complaint among employees, leading to reduced performance. This study aimed to assess the impact of music on the working memory performance of individuals exposed to ISN in simulated open-plan offices. Additionally, ...
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Background: In open-plan office environments, irrelevant speech noise (ISN) is a common complaint among employees, leading to reduced performance. This study aimed to assess the impact of music on the working memory performance of individuals exposed to ISN in simulated open-plan offices. Additionally, we sought to examine any differential effects of music between male and female participants.Methods: In this experimental study, participants were selected through convenient sampling. Their working memory performance was evaluated using n-back (n=1, 2) tests conducted with software while they were exposed to irrelevant speech noise (ISN) alone and a combination of ISN and music. Sampling took place over one month during the spring season in the acoustic laboratory of the Faculty of Health in Shiraz, Iran.Results: Thirty students, including 15 females, with an ags range of 18 to 38 (Mean=25.27, Standard Deviation=6.03), participated in the study. The results showed a significant increase in the accuracy of participants’ responses to both simple and difficult tasks of the n-back (n=1, 2) test when music was played compared to the ISNonly condition. However, there was no significant difference between the conditions regarding reaction times in the working memory test.Conclusion: In the present study, the inclusion of music, specifically “For Elise,” emerged as a crucial factor in enhancing working memory amidst the presence of open-plan office noise. This finding underscores the potential of utilizing music as an effective strategy for improving cognitive performance in such environments. Given its cost-effectiveness and simplicity of implementation, incorporating background music like “For Elise” can be recommended as a favorable method for mitigating the negative impacts of noise in open-plan offices.
Reza Kazemi; Hematoola Bahredar; Sajad Mousavi; Amin Norozi
Volume 5, Issue 4 , October 2017, , Pages 158-163
Abstract
AbstractBackground: Human errors play a crucial role in the incidence of industrial accidents. Hence, human reliability assessment (HRA) is essential as the most significant element of the system. The present study was conducted aiming at assessing human reliability in steering a blast furnace in an ...
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AbstractBackground: Human errors play a crucial role in the incidence of industrial accidents. Hence, human reliability assessment (HRA) is essential as the most significant element of the system. The present study was conducted aiming at assessing human reliability in steering a blast furnace in an iron melting industry.Methods: The study comprised all HRA stages, namely data collection (through questionnaire), determination of the scope of the study (using interviews and questionnaires), task analysis (through hierarchical task analysis (HTA), determination and identification of errors (SHERPA ), screening, error quantification (HEART), and analysis and effect assessment of human error reduction.Results: A number of 169 errors were identified among 140 Bottom-Level Tasks obtained from HTA diagrams. Among the 38 error producing factors, 22 were identified as effective factors, among which low workforce spirit (19%), excess team members (15.7%), operator inexperience (12.4%), and the poor quality of data transmission through instructions and through person-to-person interaction (11.75%) accounted for the highest effect on the whole operation.Discussion: Human errors in operations for steering blast furnace occur due to a variety of factors, often rooted in various management levels, instructions for steering operations and repair, operators-panels interaction levels, and some factors affecting performance. As a single approach, the techniques used in this study yielded fruitful results. These techniques enjoy high validity though there were signs of technical immaturity, which led to failure in providing consistent control methods.Conclusion: Despite the technical weaknesses in the HRA techniques, currently the HRA is a useful method to enhance the reliability of crucial operations, such as the steering operation of blast furnace.
Reza Kazemi; Safora Karimpour; Maryam Shahriyari; Seyed Noredin Hossaini
Volume 5, Issue 4 , October 2017, , Pages 188-192
Abstract
Abstract Background: The mental workload and cognitive failures are among the factors affecting the human behavior, performance and efficiency, which are both effective on the human error and accidents of the drivers. This study was conducted to examine the relationship between cognitive failure and ...
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Abstract Background: The mental workload and cognitive failures are among the factors affecting the human behavior, performance and efficiency, which are both effective on the human error and accidents of the drivers. This study was conducted to examine the relationship between cognitive failure and mental workload of taxi drivers in Shiraz.Methods: This descriptive-analytical and cross-sectional study was conducted on 200 taxi drivers in Shiraz in 2017. In order to measure the mental workload and cognitive failure, NASA-TLX mental workload questionnaire and CFQ cognitive failure questionnaire were used, respectively. Finally, statistical analysis was performed using SPSS version 21. Pearson correlation, T-test and one-way ANOVA tests were used to analyze the data statistically.Results: The taxi drivers' mental workload was reported relatively high in this study and the results showed that a significant relationship was found between mental and temporal workload and nominal memory error of drivers at 5% error level (p <0.05). Also, a significant relationship was observed between temporal pressure and performance and memory and attention, respectively (p<0.05). In general, a significant relationship was observed between total cognitive failure and total mental workload (p<0.05). Also, demographic factors as age had a significant effect on both mental workload and cognitive failure (p<0.05).Conclusion: The results of this study showed a significant relationship between the mental workload and cognitive failure, so that with increasing the mental workload, cognitive failure of taxi drivers also increased and the probability of the human error and consequently driving accidents increased. Therefore, reducing the mental workload with providing ergonomic solutions can greatly prevent the human error in driving as a major contributor to many accidents.
