Environmental Noise and Task Concentration
How do different environmental noise profiles affect concentration during demanding tasks? Cognitive psychologists investigated this by conducting an experiment where participants completed a standardized proofreading task under one of two auditory conditions.
Twenty participants completed the task in an Active Noise Cancelling (ANC) environment, and another twenty participants completed the task in a Natural Ambient (NA) environment. Each participant was given a concentration score from 1 (very low concentration) to 20 (extremely high concentration).
The concentration scores for both groups are presented in the table below.
Table 1: Concentration scores for the Active Noise Cancelling (ANC) and Natural Ambient (NA) groups
| Active Noise Cancelling (ANC) | Natural Ambient (NA) |
|---|---|
| 12 | 8 |
| 14 | 12 |
| 19 | 15 |
| 8 | 3 |
| 11 | 11 |
| 5 | 14 |
| 17 | 9 |
| 13 | 18 |
| 10 | 7 |
| 15 | 10 |
| 7 | 13 |
| 18 | 5 |
| 9 | 16 |
| 12 | 11 |
| 14 | 8 |
| 6 | 12 |
| 16 | 6 |
| 11 | 14 |
| 15 | 9 |
| 8 | 10 |
What is the range for the concentration scores of the Active Noise Cancelling (ANC) group and the Natural Ambient (NA) group? Show your workings.
513 exam-style questions on OCR A Level Psychology Data recording, analysis and presentation. Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.