Groups of subjects were placed in a room in which their personal space was violated or not violated. Some subjects were told that subliminal noise would be played into the room and that noise would either arouse or relax them. (Actually there was no noise.) Other subjects were told nothing about subliminal noise. The subjects worked on a number of tasks and were then asked to report how crowded they felt. An interaction between the two variables was obtained such that the explanation had no effect on subject's performance nor the reported crowding when their personal space was not being violated. However, when there was a violation of personal space, subjects who felt the noise would arouse them reported being less crowded and performed better than subjects in the relaxing noise or no explanation conditions. It was reasoned that subjects attributed the arousal caused by the personal space violation as being caused by the "arousing" noise and thus, they felt less crowded than when they could not attribute arousal as being caused by the noise. These results support the theory that crowding is a function of violation of personal space and attribution about the cause of arousal created by the violations. (Author)