Unpleasant Sounds Research Articles

Reducing discomfort by integrating unpleasant environmental sounds with cognitive sound control

We respond to unpleasant sounds in our daily lives by blocking out sound environments that we find unpleasant. This may be because of our helplessness in interfering with these sounds. However, blocking limits the range of sound selection. To reduce discomfort from unpleasant sound, rather than blocking the sound environment, this study aimed to make unpleasant sounds less bothersome by integrating them into music. To achieve this, we expect that participants will intervene in the sound environment where there is unpleasant sound, recognize that the environment is controllable, and reduce the unpleasantness of the sound. If participants can consider unpleasant sounds as part of the environment they can control, they can create an environment in which unpleasant sounds do not bother them. In this study, melody generated based on the rhythm of the unpleasant sound was played, and experiments were conducted to cognitively mask the unpleasant sound based on the perception that it can interfere with the environment as the melody can be adjusted. Results showed that manipulating the environment altered the perception of unpleasant sounds and improved task performance by reducing their unpleasantness. Improved performance may be due to task-specific self-efficacy.

How to deal with unsuspected source of annoyance in electric vehicle cabin using the "sonic augmented" concept?

The disappearance of the main source of noise with electric vehicles resulted in a breakthrough in car cabin sound experience. Despite significantly lowering the sound level pressure, one cannot claim perfect quietness is achieved. Indeed, as the auditory masking produced by the internal combustion engine is not effective anymore, unsuspected sounds such as electric whistling, whining or switching are now part of this sound environment and may be identified as unpleasant sounds. However, drivers' expectations are to have audible feedback indicative of vehicle operation that matches their expectations. Therefore, the presence of unwanted and unpleasant sounds, on the one hand, and the absence of desired and informative sounds, on the other hand, is an opportunity for sound design to create a new sound environment inside car cabins. The present work proposes a "sonic augmented" concept based on the idea of adding designed sounds, called "masks", participating both in the overall soundscape augmentation and in the attenuation of unpleasant sounds, called "defects". Sound design strategies with different parametrizations will be presented, as well as the results of two perceptive experiments whit the aims at evaluating the impact on perceptive attenuation of "defects" and the overall sound quality.

Psychological evaluation of auditory warning signal for train horn

Air horns are commonly used to signal danger or caution during railroad operations. The main objectives of those auditory signals (i.e., whistle cords) are to "warn of danger," "call attention," and "notification of approach" in the situation before an accident occurs or "report an emergency" to those around after an accident occurs. Further, in case of using auditory signals in nonemergency situations (e.g., during the departure or arrival of a train), loud or unpleasant sounds should be avoided to the greatest possible extent, considering noise pollution in the environment. This study examined the nature of auditory signals for railroad vehicles through psycho-acoustic experiments using 11 types of auditory stimuli, including a "short, rapid horn sound" and a "long, slow horn sound." In the rating experiments, the auditory stimuli were presented via headphones to individual participants. The results indicated that upon initiating the auditory signal with an electronic horn sound (less unpleasant and dangerous impression) before blowing the air horn to alert perceived danger, the impressions of "warning," "caution," and "danger" tended to decrease, whereas those of "pleasantness," "quietness," and "relaxedness" tended to increase. The combined usage of electric and air horns can effectively provide auditory signals for maintaining the safety of railroad operations while addressing the associated noise pollution.

Quality of life in ostomy patient.

Background: The patient undergoing ostomy surgery experiences changes in multiple areas of their life related to their altered self-perception. In addition to potential postoperative complications, they face significant physical, physiological, psychological, and social changes that directly affect their physical and mental health. An ostomy is a process that saves thousands of lives every day and offers a second chance to patients suffering from diseases such as colorectal cancer, visceral perforation, diverticula, Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, and others. It involves redirecting a hollow viscus to the surface of the body in a location different from its natural opening, creating an opening on the surface of the body called a stoma, which diverts the intestinal transit. The patient will require a collecting bag for bodily waste. Currently, there are multiple investigations aimed at assessing the quality of life related to the health of patients who have undergone this surgical intervention, and the concerns they experience in their day-to-day lives. Therefore, this systematic review analyzed the literature in order to determine the perceived impact on quality of life related to health in ostomized patients. Material and methods: A systematic retrospective search was conducted in the following databases: PubMed (MEDLINE), TripDatabase, CINAHL, Cochrane Library, Google Scholar and PsycINFO. The MESH search terms used in this study were: Colostomy; Stoma; Ostomy; Ileostomy; Quality of life; Complications; Adaptations; Problems. Using the Boolean operators OR and AND. A total of 527 articles were obtained as a result, of which 17 articles met the inclusion criteria of this study. Results: A total of 9308 patients were studied, 55.65% of whom were men and 44.34% were women. 73.53% underwent colostomy procedures, while 24.15% underwent ileostomy, 76.28% maintained a permanent ostomy, and 20.93% had a temporary ostomy. Of the total number of studies evaluated, it was observed that ostomized patients had a clear alteration in quality of life in one or more of the analyzed variables. Conclusion: The quality of life of ostomy patients is severely impacted. Among the analyzed variables, the causes of this finding were: changes in body image, lack of control over bowel evacuation, unpleasant odors, unpleasant sounds, constipation, and leaks. The consequences of these findings were: disruptions in physical self-perception, psychological, social, and emotional alterations, low self-esteem, depressive feelings, changing clothing, difficulties traveling, social isolation, deterioration of the family role, and insecurity in managing their ostomy.

Terror Management: The Effects of Mortality Salience on Desire for Money Among Singaporeans

Terror management theory has been used to explain our penchant for materialism. While materialism includes both the desire for products and the desire for money, research has generally examined the former. Consequently, this article aimed to examine the effects of mortality salience on desire for money in Singapore. Study 1 found that mortality salience did not increase self-reported desire for money but increased the size of a drawn coin. Study 2 found that mortality salience did not increase the preferred selling price of a used laptop. Finally, Study 3 found that mortality salience did not increase the willingness to listen to unpleasant sounds in exchange for money. Furthermore, attitudes toward money did not moderate the effects of mortality salience on desire for money. The nonsignificant results could be due to data collection during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and the use of a Singaporean sample. Future research directions include examining the effects of the pandemic on terror management theory research and examining both the desire for products and the desire for money concurrently as dependent variables.

Chladni Plate in Anechoic Chamber: Symmetry in Vibrational and Acoustic Response

A square metal plate (Chladni plate) is excited harmonically by a vibration shaker, while the whole system is set in an anechoic chamber to stop reflections, isolate the system from sound entering from the surroundings, and deal with direct sounds only. As far as the authors are aware, such an arrangement has not been achieved so far. Vibration modes are visualized by using poppy grains scattered over the upper surface of the plate and are also recorded by a camera located above it, inserted among the acoustic wedges on the roof of the chamber, which made it possible to record the patterns and avoid unpleasant sounds associated with some of them. Four distinctive vibration modes of the plate are then originally identified using vibrational and acoustic mode identification. These responses from the plate are measured both by an accelerometer attached to the central point of the plate and by a microphone set on the same vertical line as the accelerometer but above it, measuring the direct sound. The signals from the accelerometer and the microphone are then compared in two experimental arrangements, and their forms and the frequency contents are found to be equivalent. It is shown that the existing symmetry, i.e., the exact correspondence between vibrational and acoustic responses, can be used as the identifier of the patterns formed on the plate and the associated modal frequency.

Indoor soundscape in primary school classroomsa).

Soundscape research on indoor environments is emerging as a topic to be addressed for the design of supportive, healthier, and more comfortable spaces. Only a few studies so far addressed the context of educational buildings, mainly focusing on high schools and universities. This pilot study uses questionnaires based on pictorial scales to investigate the indoor soundscape of classrooms for primary school children (n = 130; 8-10 years old). Perceived loudness and the affective dimensions of pleasantness and arousal were explored. Besides the actual soundscape, the children's ideal soundscape was investigated as well. The results of the study indicate that the most frequent sounds in classrooms are generated by the students themselves (voices, movements) followed by the traffic. The urban context of the school modulates the children's perception when windows are open to ensure natural ventilation. Pleasantness is associated with students' age, perceived loudness, and frequency of children's voices in nearby classrooms. The frequency of hearing indoor sounds (children's voices) and sirens affects students' arousal. Our results indicate that children at school are mostly exposed to unpleasant sounds, whereas their preferred ones are music and nature-related ones. The findings have implications for the design of positive and inclusive learning environments.

Assessment of the Effectiveness of a Short-term Hearing Aid Use in Patients with Different Degrees of Hearing Loss

The study presents evaluating the effectiveness of the hearing aid fitting process in the short-term use (7 days). The evaluation method consists of a survey based on the APHAB (Abbreviated Profile of Hearing Aid Benefit) questionnaire. Additional criteria such as a degree of hearing loss, number of hours and days of hearing aid use as well as the user’s experience were also taken into consideration. The outcomes of the benefit obtained from the hearing aid use in various listening environments for 109 hearing aid users are presented, including a degree of their hearing loss. The research study results show that it is possible to obtain relevant and reliable information helpful in assessing the effectiveness of the shortterm (7 days) hearing aid use. The overall percentage of subjects gaining a benefit when communicating in noise is the highest of all the analyzed and the lowest in the environment with reverberation. The statistical analysis performed confirms that in the listening environments in which conversation is held, a subjective indicator determined by averaging benefits for listening situations individually is statistically significant with respect to the degree of hearing loss. Statistically significant differences depending on the degree of hearing loss are also found separately for noisy as well as reverberant environments. However, it should be remembered that this study is limited to three types of hearing loss, i.e. mild, moderate and severe. The acceptance of unpleasant sounds gets the lowest rating. It has also been observed that in the initial period of hearing aid use, the perception of unpleasant sounds has a big influence on the evaluation of hearing improvement.

Feasibility of an Auditory Paradigm to Measure Physiological Reactivity to Standard Tones & Unpleasant Sounds

Abstract Date Presented 04/21/2023 There is a lack of standardized assessment tools that can be used to measure severity of sound sensitivity symptoms, outcomes of treatment, and diagnostic differentiation. The primary aim of this study was to test the feasibility of using a lab-based protocol to measure physiological reactivity in response to standard tones and unpleasant sounds. Primary Author and Speaker: Stacey Reynolds Additional Authors and Speakers: Alyssa Hayman, Kayla Swaringen

Information processing biases: The effects of negative emotional symptoms on sampling pleasant and unpleasant information.

Although theories of emotion associate negative emotional symptoms with cognitive biases in information processing, they rarely specify the details. Here, we characterize cognitive biases in information processing of pleasant and unpleasant information, and how these biases covary with anxious and depressive symptoms, while controlling for general stress and cognitive ability. Forty undergraduates provided emotional symptom scores (Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21) and performed a statistical learning task that required predicting the next sound in a long sequence of either pleasant or unpleasant naturalistic sounds (blocks). We used an information weights framework to determine if the degree of behavioral change associated with observing either confirmatory ("B" follows "A") or disconfirmatory ("B" does not follow "A") transitions differs for pleasant and unpleasant sounds. Bayesian mixed-effects models revealed that negative emotional symptom scores predicted performance as well as processing biases of pleasant and unpleasant information. Further, information weights differed between pleasant and unpleasant information, and importantly, this difference varied based on symptom scores. For example, higher depressive symptom scores predicted a bias of underutilizing disconfirmatory information in unpleasant content. These findings have implications for models of emotional disorders by offering a mechanistic explanation and formalization of the associated cognitive biases. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

The birth of noise in modern China: Radio, amateur engineering, and the sonic network

This article argues that noise was born in modern China with the advent of radio and radio broadcasting. The media specificity of radio required that any radio listener must be an acoustic engineer to some extent, dealing with “noise current,” “tunable hum,” and “interference” before tuning into the desired radio program. This novel experience of listening as engineering gave rise to a new conceptualization of noise not merely as unpleasant sounds (the music-noise dichotomy), but also in terms of modern information technology (the signal-noise dichotomy). Integrating both modes of understanding noise, this article further suggests that the affordable radio sets and the public-oriented radio broadcasting together constituted an unprecedented sonic network, one that transmitted heterogenous sonic information from all over the world back home and at the same time deprived of any individual’s agency in deciding what to listen to. Living in this sonic network, one’s body-mind had to function as if it were a radio set, exposed to overwhelming information streams and trying to filter out noise as both disturbing signals and undesired contents. Radio noise is therefore symptomatic of the most fundamental dilemma China was facing in an era of global modernity, national crisis, and information explosion.

Effects of audible bandwidth and stimulus modality on emotional responses to sound

A wide range of emotional responses is typical and important for overall well-being. Adults with hearing loss demonstrate a reduced range of emotional responses to non-speech sounds; their ratings of valence to pleasant and unpleasant sounds are less extreme than those of their peers with normal hearing. The purpose of this project was to explore the role of two potential explanations, limited audible bandwidth and emotional processing differences. Adults with normal hearing and sensorineural hearing loss rated their emotional responses (valence and arousal) to non-speech, affective sounds and pictures (in combination and in isolation). To explore the potential contribution of audible bandwidth, adults with normal hearing rated stimuli that were full bandwidth and also bandpass limited. In addition, adults with hearing loss were specifically recruited to include heterogeneous hearing loss configurations. Differences in ratings between auditory and visual stimuli provide insight into whether reduced emotional responses for adults with hearing loss are specific to audition or generalize to visual stimuli. Results demonstrate the importance of audition and audible bandwidth as key factors in emotional responses to pleasant, non-speech stimuli. These findings have important implications for designing interventions to support the listening needs of adults with hearing loss.

Developing a Multi-sensory Public Participation GIS (MSPPGIS) method for integrating landscape values and soundscapes of urban green infrastructure

This paper develops, tests and validates a Multi-sensory Public Participation GIS (MSPPGIS) method combining the qualities of soundscapes and landscape values mapping. The development of the method involved: a) Public Participation GIS survey design; b) three-phase evaluation of survey addressing analytical, applicability and usability criteria; c) survey refinement; d) sampling and data collection, and; e) spatial data analysis. The analysis consisted of hotspot mapping involving Kernel Density Estimation, spatial overlap assessment using Jaccard coefficients and value compatibility analysis showing the level of spatial compatibility between positive landscape values and positive and negative soundscapes. Results indicated very low to low spatial overlap between the different landscape values and pleasant/unpleasant sound hotspots, suggesting that landscape values do not necessarily reflect sonic perception of urban green and blue spaces. Pleasant and unpleasant sounds were located closer to home than landscape values (except for urban life values), indicating that respondents’ soundscape ‘cognitive map’ is smaller in spatial range. The MSPPGIS method enables the elicitation of a more dynamic and diverse set of sounds compared to previous soundscape mapping which tend to focus on 'noise' instead of multiple experiences of different sounds. Also, the combination of landscape values and soundscapes in MSPPGIS provides for a more integrated assessment of ‘where’ and ‘how’ to design urban green infrastructure.

Sound pleasantness influences the perception of both emotional and non-emotional foods

Sounds elicit emotional responses that can influence the perception of food. However, the effects of sounds upon the perception of emotional and non-emotional foods have yet to be fully elucidated. The present study was designed to investigate how pleasant and unpleasant sounds influenced both perception and emotion responses during the consumption of chocolate milkshake (CM) and vegetable ice cream, representing emotional non-emotional foods, respectively. The temporal changes in perceived flavour were documented using the temporal dominance of sensations (TDS) method. In addition, ratings of liking, affective states, and emotional state were determined following the consumption of milkshake and ice cream. Canonical variate analysis (CVA) was used to further summarise the standardised duration of flavour of CM, liked vegetable ice cream (LV), and less liked vegetable ice cream (LLV) consumed under different sound conditions. Multivariate analysis revealed significant differences between the standardised duration of flavours of CM, LV, and LLV perceived under the pleasant sound (PS) and unpleasant sound (US) conditions. Additionally, flavour perception, affective states, and emotional responses varied with CM, LV, and LLV under the PS and US conditions. These findings contribute to a better understanding of how sounds that vary in pleasantness can influence the perceptual dynamics of emotional and non-emotional foods.

Specificity of Affective Responses in Misophonia Depends on Trigger Identification.

Individuals with misophonia, a disorder involving extreme sound sensitivity, report significant anger, disgust, and anxiety in response to select but usually common sounds. While estimates of prevalence within certain populations such as college students have approached 20%, it is currently unknown what percentage of people experience misophonic responses to such “trigger” sounds. Furthermore, there is little understanding of the fundamental processes involved. In this study, we aimed to characterize the distribution of misophonic symptoms in a general population, as well as clarify whether the aversive emotional responses to trigger sounds are partly caused by acoustic salience of the sound itself, or by recognition of the sound. Using multi-talker babble as masking noise to decrease participants' ability to identify sounds, we assessed how identification of common trigger sounds related to subjective emotional responses in 300 adults who participated in an online study. Participants were asked to listen to and identify neutral, unpleasant and trigger sounds embedded in different levels of the masking noise (signal-to-noise ratios: −30, −20, −10, 0, +10 dB), and then to evaluate their subjective judgment of the sounds (pleasantness) and emotional reactions to them (anxiety, anger, and disgust). Using participants' scores on a scale quantifying misophonia sensitivity, we selected the top and bottom 20% scorers from the distribution to form a Most-Misophonic subgroup (N = 66) and Least-Misophonic subgroup (N = 68). Both groups were better at identifying triggers than unpleasant sounds, which themselves were identified better than neutral sounds. Both groups also recognized the aversiveness of the unpleasant and trigger sounds, yet for the Most-Misophonic group, there was a greater increase in subjective ratings of negative emotions once the sounds became identifiable, especially for trigger sounds. These results highlight the heightened salience of trigger sounds, but furthermore suggest that learning and higher-order evaluation of sounds play an important role in misophonia.

The Influence of Background Sounds, Physical Sounds, and Managers’ Proactive Customer Service Regarding Situational Sounds on Customer Satisfaction in the Restaurant Industry

Noise complaints in restaurants have been accelerating and unpleasant sounds erode customer satisfaction. Restaurant ambient noise, such as background and physical sounds influence customer satisfaction and effectively controlling the sound environment in restaurants is challenging, particularly situational sounds generated by customers. Situational sounds address how customers are influenced by other customers dining in the same restaurant and highlight a type of sound that cannot be easily managed by employees. Situational sounds can be loud conversation among fellow customers or misbehaving children. Concerns with situational sounds are less about how they impact customer satisfaction, and more about the way in which managers handle them. Thus, managers find a proactive service approach to be most effective when handling situational sounds in a restaurant. For example, strategically placing a large noisy group in a separate room or further away from other customers in the restaurant can mitigate the negative impact to other diners. The results of this study confirmed that background sounds, physical sounds, and managers’ proactive customer service regarding situational sounds impact customer satisfaction. However, the interactive effects of background sounds, physical sounds, and managers’ proactive customer service regarding situational sounds do not influence customer satisfaction. Based on the results, recommendations for restaurant managers are provided to decrease controllable unpleasant noises caused by background and physical sounds as well as strategies for effectively executing proactive customer service to handle situational sounds.

Emotional sounds guide visual attention to emotional pictures: An eye-tracking study with audio-visual stimuli.

For the realm of visual cues, it has been well documented that attention is preferentially oriented toward emotionally relevant cues. Preliminary evidence suggests that emotional cues from other sensory modalities may also steer visual attention toward emotional pictures. However, more research is needed to elucidate the mechanisms that are involved. Therefore, a novel design was used to investigate whether emotional sounds promote attentional orientation toward emotional pictures. To this end, 48 participants viewed pairs of pictures with either neutral or unpleasant content in a free-viewing paradigm. In addition, neutral or unpleasant sounds were presented either on the left-hand or on the right-hand side of the monitor. Eye movements were recorded as an index of visual spatial attention toward the pictures. Most interestingly, position and valence of the sounds independently modulated visual orienting towards unpleasant pictures. For initial capture and sustained attention, orienting towards unpleasant pictures was significantly enhanced when any sound was heard on the same side as the unpleasant picture. In addition, unpleasant sounds (irrespective of the side) boosted leftward bias of initial attention toward emotionally congruent pictures. Taken together, this study clearly shows that emotional auditory cues guide visual spatial allocation of attention specifically to emotionally congruent pictures. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

A psychoacoustic test for misophonia assessment

Misophonia is a condition where a strong arousal response is triggered when hearing specific human generated sounds, like chewing, and/or repetitive tapping noises, like pen clicking. It is diagnosed with clinical interviews and questionnaires since no psychoacoustic tools exist to assess its presence. The present study was aimed at developing and testing a new assessment tool for misophonia. The method was inspired by an approach we have recently developed for hyperacusis. It consisted of presenting subjects (n = 253) with misophonic, pleasant, and unpleasant sounds in an online experiment. The task was to rate them on a pleasant to unpleasant visual analog scale. Subjects were labeled as misophonics (n = 78) or controls (n = 55) by using self-report questions and a misophonia questionnaire, the MisoQuest. There was a significant difference between controls and misophonics in the median global rating of misophonic sounds. On the other hand, median global rating of unpleasant, and pleasant sounds did not differ significantly. We selected a subset of the misophonic sounds to form the core discriminant sounds of misophonia (CDSMiso). A metric: the CDS score, was used to quantitatively measure misophonia, both with a global score and with subscores. The latter could specifically quantify aversion towards different sound sources/events, i.e., mouth, breathing/nose, throat, and repetitive sounds. A receiver operating characteristic analysis showed that the method accurately classified subjects with and without misophonia (accuracy = 91%). The present study suggests that the psychoacoustic test we have developed can be used to assess misophonia reliably and quickly.

The Sound of Smell: Associating Odor Valence With Disgust Sounds.

Olfaction has recently been highlighted as a sense poorly connected with language. Odor is difficult to verbalize, and it has few qualities that afford mimicry by vision or sound. At the same time, emotion is thought to be the most salient dimension of an odor, and it could therefore be an olfactory dimension more easily communicated. We investigated whether sounds imitative of an innate disgust response can be associated with unpleasant odors. In two experiments, participants were asked to make a forced choice between a pseudoword including a disgust sound and a neutral pseudoword, for pleasant and unpleasant odors. Overall, participants chose more disgust pseudowords than neutral pseudowords for unpleasant odors, but this was not the case for pleasant odors. This effect was not driven by a general association between unpleasant sounds and unpleasant odors, but specifically the sounds [x/χ] and [f], thought to reflect physical responses to disgusting odors, as seen in the Polish fu! or the English ugh!. In line with growing evidence that language can encode odor, we provide the first experimental evidence for an association between the sound of a word and odor valence.

Why Does the IAT Reveal a Preference for Stimuli Said to Be Paired With an Unpleasant Sound? Stalking the Unexpected

The Implicit Association Test (IAT) is the most widely used measure to assess automatic evaluations. One classic phenomenon that has been well established both using the IAT and self-report measures of liking is evaluative conditioning (EC), which refers to a change in the evaluation of a stimulus due to its pairing with another stimulus. Research has documented that EC can also occur when participants are merely informed about upcoming stimulus pairings. In a recent study, participants reported a more negative evaluation of non-words that were instructed to be followed by an unpleasant sound compared to non-words that would not to be followed by this sound (De Houwer, Mattavelli, & Van Dessel, 2019). Interestingly, however, an unexpected pattern was observed on an IAT, that is, a preference for the stimulus said to be followed by the sound. We report three pre-registered experiments (N = 650) in which we manipulated different aspects of the procedure such as the stimuli, instructions, and the measure, but that still revealed the same dissociation. Based on three pilot experiments (N = 92), we then conducted a registered report study (Experiment 4) testing whether the unexpected effect depends on how the USs are labelled in the instructions. Although describing the aversive sound as negative eliminated the unexpected IAT effect, the type of instruction only had a weak impact on IAT effects. These results are in line with prior evidence showing that IAT scores are malleable.