The Role of Auditory Environments and Anxiety in Detecting Phishing Emails

Anaraky, R., Cartwright, M., Nov, O. The Role of Auditory Environments and Anxiety in Detecting Phishing Emails. In Proceedings of the ACM CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA), 2025.

Abstract

This work explores the effects of auditory environments and anxiety on users’ ability to identify phishing emails. In an experimental in-person study, sixty participants evaluated twelve different phishing and legitimate emails while immersed in four different auditory environments (silence, lecture, ambient street noise, concert), at low or high playback (i.e., volume) levels. Using a path model, we found that (1) all non-silent auditory environments induced some level of anxiety, reducing participants’ ability to correctly identify phishing emails, and (2) low (vs. high) playback level of ambient noise led to lower levels of anxiety and, in turn, higher accuracy in identifying phishing emails. These findings highlight the importance of auditory environments in managing anxiety for improving phishing detection capabilities. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of this work.