“It isn’t just that noise distracts,” Szalma says. “It consumes your mental capacities in a way that depletes them, so you have less available for your primary task. We found that human voices are actually the most disruptive kind of noise, more than white noise or industrial noise. So if you’re thinking about your next move, and you hear someone yelling from the stands, that sound can disrupt your thought process—unless you’ve developed coping skills to ignore it.”