The Surprising Connection Between Moderate Noise Levels and Creativity

There’s a reason your local coffee shop is buzzing with patrons at their laptops, typing out the next Great American Novel or innovative business idea. A study led by Ravi Mehta, assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, shows that high levels of ambient noise were found to stifle creativity, but moderate noise (around 70 decibels), not peace and quiet, increased participants’ creative performance.

“When the mind is [slightly] distracted, it thinks at a broader, more abstract level,” Mehta says, and creative juices begin to flow.

Resources

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/06/study-of-the-day-why-crowded-coffee-shops-fire-up-your-creativity/258742/

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.1086/665048?uid=2&uid=4&sid=21101011773213

http://www.chem.purdue.edu/chemsafety/Training/PPETrain/dblevels.htm