The research suggests this provides partial benefit. Mueller et al. (2022, Frontiers in Built Environment) found that ANC headphones improve perceived acoustic comfort but do not improve actual cognitive task performance in office speech conditions — the irrelevant speech effect continues through the residual speech signal that ANC systems cannot fully eliminate. Physical acoustic enclosure (≤35 dB interior) is the only intervention that fully eliminates the irrelevant speech effect and restores working memory capacity to its unimpaired state.