Emotions and physiological responses elicited by neighbours sounds in wooden residential buildings

Abstract

This research set out to investigate emotions and physiological responses elicited by neighbour sounds in wooden residential buildings. A laboratory experiment was performed in an audiometric booth with individual (i.e. footsteps, speech, or music) and combined sounds (i.e. footsteps in combination with music or speech) from neighbours. Participants performed a self-assessment of their levels of arousal and valence using the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM). The participant's physiological responses were also monitored throughout the experiment in terms of facial electromyography (fEMG in the corrugator supercilii (CS) and zygomaticus major (ZM) muscle groups), heart rate (HR) and electrodermal activity (EDA). The results showed that arousal and valence ratings of individual and combined sounds were organised along the defensive motivation circuit. The impact of sound pressure level (SPL) on affective ratings were significant except for individual music clip and footsteps sound combined with music. Listening to neighbour sounds evoked significant activities in physiological responses. Compared with the baseline only with ambient noise, neighbour sounds evoking affective responses led to an increase in fEMG CS activity and to a decrease in fEMG ZM activity, HR and EDA. The differences in fEMG ZM activities between individual and combined sounds were significant and the SPL had little effect on physiological responses. Arousal ratings were significantly correlated with fEMG CS activity, while valence ratings were strongly associated with EDA. The affective ratings were influenced by self-rated noise sensitivity, but this was not the case for physiological responses.