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Brain & Nervous System

No effect of an UMTS mobile phone-like electromagnetic field of 1.97 GHz on human attention and reaction time.

No Effects Found

Unterlechner M, Sauter C, Schmid G, Zeitlhofer J. · 2008

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Short-term 3G phone exposure showed no immediate effects on attention or reaction time, even at levels exceeding normal use.

Plain English Summary

Summary written for general audiences

Researchers exposed 40 healthy volunteers to UMTS mobile phone-like electromagnetic fields at 1.97 GHz while testing their attention and reaction time on computer tasks. The study found no statistically significant effects on cognitive performance, even at exposure levels up to 1.49 W/kg SAR (specific absorption rate, a measure of how much energy the body absorbs). This suggests that short-term exposure to 3G mobile phone signals does not immediately impair basic cognitive functions like attention and reaction speed.

Study Details

The aim of this study is to investigate No effect of an UMTS mobile phone-like electromagnetic field of 1.97 GHz on human attention and reaction time.

In our study, 40 healthy volunteers (20 female, 20 male), aged 26.0 years (range 21-30 years) underw...

In the high exposure condition the resulting peak spatial average exposure of the test subjects in t...

Therefore, this study does not provide any evidence that exposure of UMTS mobiles interferes with attention under short-term exposure conditions.

Cite This Study
Unterlechner M, Sauter C, Schmid G, Zeitlhofer J. (2008). No effect of an UMTS mobile phone-like electromagnetic field of 1.97 GHz on human attention and reaction time. Bioelectromagnetics.29(2):145-153, 2008.
Show BibTeX
@article{m_2008_no_effect_of_an_3456,
  author = {Unterlechner M and Sauter C and Schmid G and Zeitlhofer J.},
  title = {No effect of an UMTS mobile phone-like electromagnetic field of 1.97 GHz on human attention and reaction time.},
  year = {2008},
  
  url = {https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17957702/},
}
PubMed: 17957702

Cited By (37 papers)

View all 37 citing papers on Semantic Scholar

Quick Questions About This Study

No, a 2008 study found that 1.97 GHz UMTS mobile phone radiation had no statistically significant effects on attention or reaction time in 40 healthy volunteers. Even at high exposure levels up to 1.49 W/kg SAR, cognitive performance remained unchanged during computer-based testing tasks.
The study tested SAR levels up to 1.49 W/kg in brain tissue, with average exposures of 0.63 W/kg (1g averaged) and 0.37 W/kg (10g averaged) in the left temporal lobe. Low exposure conditions used one-tenth of these levels, while sham exposure was at least 50 dB below low exposure.
No, research on 1.97 GHz UMTS signals found no immediate impairment of basic cognitive functions like attention and reaction speed. The 2008 study by Unterlechner and colleagues demonstrated that short-term exposure to 3G mobile phone electromagnetic fields does not affect cognitive performance.
The 2008 UMTS study found no cognitive effects from short-term exposure, but longer-term effects remain unknown. Researchers exposed volunteers to 1.97 GHz radiation during computer tasks and found no immediate changes in attention or reaction time, leaving questions about chronic exposure unanswered.
The study specifically targeted the left temporal lobe cortex with 1.97 GHz UMTS radiation. Peak exposures in this brain region reached 0.63 W/kg SAR, but researchers found no statistically significant effects on attention or reaction time performance in the 40 test subjects.