Impact of selective environmental sound attenuation on operator performance, stress, attention, and task engagement in teleoperated demolition

The noise produced in demolition sites can mask safety-critical sounds that inform operators about task conditions and hazards. These problems are exacerbated in teleoperated demolition, where the separation between operator and site compromises operators' situation awareness and cognitive loads. This paper assessed the effects of environmental sounds with and without attenuation on the operators' performance and response (e.g., stress, attention, task engagement) during teleoperated demolition. Eighty participants completed three virtual demolition tasks under different environmental sound conditions, i.e., no sound (NS), unfiltered sound (US), and filtered sound (FS) with 20-dB attenuation of background noise and robot's sounds to allow focus on safety and task conditions. The results show that US induced more stress than NS and FS. Also, FS resulted in fewer collisions, faster reaction times, and greater attention and task engagement than US. These results can support the design of sound feedback interfaces for teleoperation in construction.