 After they made their predictions, the researchers either told them that the noise could make them nervous, the noise would have no effect on them, or they were told that they would not have to do the tasks until the next session a month away after they were exposed to the noise.The tasks were to unscramble anagrams or to recall as many nonsense syllables as they could after seeing them briefly.They could earn money for the tasks (more money was earned for each anagram unscrambled or each syllable correctly recalled).