Experimental design to measure the effect of room acoustics on prospective memory of hospital nurses: A protocol

A prominent cognitive aspect of a hospital nurse's job is to form, imprint and retrieve intentions for prospective memory (PM) tasks. During the verbal change of shift report and visual inspection of patient files, generally performed in the nurses' station at the start of a shift, important PM intentions are formed and imprinted. The correct retrieval of these intentions during the course of a shift is important for both patient safety and satisfaction. The nurses' station can be a hectic environment with multiple conversations at the same time. While research has shown that the acoustic environment, speech in particular, has a significant influence on several cognitive tasks, its effect on PM is not known. The acoustic environment of a nurses' station potentially influences the forming and imprinting of PM intentions. The current paper presents the design of an ecologically valid experiment with the goal of measuring the effect of realistic background speech and room acoustic conditions on the forming and imprinting of prospective memory intentions. While the experimental design is closely linked to a hospital situation, understanding the effect of acoustic conditions on PM might also be valuable in other domains.