A literature review was conducted covering the years 2014 to 2017 with a focus on the methods used to study the effects of noise on cognitive performance. Sound or noise and cognitive performance as well as several synonymous or related terms were used in the search string. The search resulted in a total of 1114 posts which were reduced by keeping only those publications that were work-related. This resulted in 82 articles. After a practical screen of the abstracts 47 publications still remained relevant. Several studies aimed to investigate the effects of office noise and addressed either only main effects of noise and/or interaction effects with other parameters, such as ventilation parameters or odors. Some studies extended the focus to the effects of noise in different office types. In this context noise abatement measures, like sound masking, were also tested. Furthermore, some studies dealt with the positive effects of sound by means of its restorative potential. Besides the more applied research work, several basic research studies were found dealing with the irrelevant sound effect and tests of different tasks and outcome measures of cognitive performance, such as mathematics, reading, word processing and writing.