After listening to the sound, the participants evaluated their irritation levels during the last five seconds of the experience. Leif and Tom found that the most pampered participants—those who had endured only five seconds of sound—were far more irritated than those who listened to the annoying sound for much longer. As you may have guessed, this result suggests that those who suffered through the vacuum whooom for forty seconds got used to it and found the last five seconds of their experience to be not so bad. But what happened to those who experienced the short break? As it turned out, the
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