Actually, I've found the opposite to be true sometimes- we were canoeing in the BWCA of MN, (black bear country), and we heard people noises from the other campsites at various times. Typical noisy campers, and they don't know how much noise carries on a lake. Starting at around dusk, we heard bear-scaring noises from each campsite consecutively. But because my wife and I are very neat and quiet campers, the bear never stopped at our campsite on his rounds.

But this doesn't always work, of course. I was on one canoe trip where we had 3 bear encounters, 2 at the same campsite! And they didn't come raiding at the typical time. They've learned that in the middle of the night, the food pack is in the trees where they can't get it. But there's a window just after mealtime, when the people are down by the water cleaning up, and the pack is unguarded. All 3 times, that's when the bear came. And we caught him, and scared him off.