Loud staff conversations and frequent ringing telephones, rustling paper, printer noises and the constant clattering of keyboards - anyone who works in an office will be familiar with the wide range of disturbing noises that hinder concentrated work and often leave more than just hearing nerves on edge at the end of the day. Noise is the most complained-about problem in open-plan offices. What effects room acoustics have on performance and what methods can be used to optimise them - this is another area that the hearing experts from the Auditory Valley research and development cluster are looking into.

The science magazine Logo from NDR Info reported on the effects of noise in open-plan offices on the International Day against Noise on 29 April 2011. Dr Markus Meis, Head of Market and Impact Research at the Oldenburg Hearing Centre and the Head of the Department of Medical Physics, Prof. Dr Dr Birger Kollmeier, provided information on this topic.

You can listen to the (audio) report here