performed signi¢cantly better in the problem sol-
ving task, and especially in the high illuminance
condition, which is not consistent with earlier re-
sults showing an opposite gender e¡ect in this type
of an abstract cognitive task (Knez & Enmarker,
1998; Ussher, 1992). However, in line with earlier
results (Knez, 1995; Knez & Kers, 2000), women per-
formed better than men in the free recall task. In
addition, men remembered more positive and
neutral words in the low illuminance condition and
the same e¡ect yielded for women in the high
illuminance condition.
Taken together, this experiment reported interac-
tions between noise and heat on the recall of a text,
and between noise and light on the free recall of
emotionally toned words. These interactive e¡ects
were neither mediated by, nor consistent with an
arousal model or the inverted-U hypothesis. More
generally, this opens up the theoretical possibility
that indoor noise, heat and lighting act directly on
cognitive performance, without being wholly or
partly mediated by a¡ect, and at least, not in the
way suggested by the inverted-U hypothesis. That
is, cognition and emotion, at least within and close
to a comfort zone, may work in parallel rather than
intermixed. Further interaction studies should ad-
dress this issue in more detail.