Showing papers on "Annoyance published in 1993"

Effect of personal and situational variables on noise annoyance in residential areas

Abstract: This study uses methods that control for noise level and data quality to objectively evaluate the evidence on 22 personal and situational explanations for annoyance with environmental noise in residential areas. The balance of the evidence from 464 findings drawn from 136 surveys suggests that annoyance is not affected to an important extent by ambient noise levels, the amount of time residents are at home, the type of interviewing method, or any of the nine demographic variables (age, sex, social status, income, education, home ownership, type of dwelling, length of residence, or receipt of benefits from the noise source). Annoyance is related to the amount of isolation from sound at home and to five attitudes (fear of danger from the noise source, noise prevention beliefs, general noise sensitivity, beliefs about the importance of the noise source, and annoyance with non‐noise impacts of the noise source). The evidence is too evenly divided to indicate whether changes in noise environments cause residents to be annoyed more, less, or about the same as would be expected in long‐established noise environments. The evidence shows that even at low noise levels (below DNL 55 dB), a small percentage are highly annoyed and that the extent of annoyance is related to noise exposure.

Noise, Noise Sensitivity and Psychiatric Disorder: Epidemiological and Psychophysiological Studies

Abstract: Noise, a prototypical environmental stressor, has clear health effects in causing hearing loss but other health effects are less evident. Noise exposure may lead to minor emotional symptoms but the evidence of elevated levels of aircraft noise leading to psychiatric hospital admissions and psychiatric disorder in the community is contradictory. Despite this there are well documented associations between noise exposure and changes in performance, sleep disturbance and emotional reactions such as annoyance. Moreover, annoyance is associated with both environmental noise level and psychological and physical symptoms, psychiatric disorder and use of health services. It seems likely that existing psychiatric disorder contributes to high levels of annoyance. However, there is also the possibility that tendency to annoyance may be a risk factor for psychiatric morbidity. Although noise level explains a significant proportion of the variance in annoyance, the other major factor, confirmed in many studies, is subjective sensitivity to noise. Noise sensitivity is also related to psychiatric disorder. The evidence for noise sensitivity being a risk factor for psychiatric disorder would be greater if it were a stable personality characteristic, and preceded psychiatric morbidity. The stability of noise sensitivity and whether it is merely secondary to psychiatric disorder or is a risk factor for psychiatric disorder as well as annoyance is examined in two studies in this monograph: a six-year follow-up of a group of highly noise sensitive and low noise sensitive women; and a longitudinal study of depressed patients and matched control subjects examining changes in noise sensitivity with recovery from depression. A further dimension of noise effects concerns the impact of noise on the autonomic nervous system. Most physiological responses to noise habituate rapidly but in some people physiological responses persist. It is not clear whether this sub-sample is also subjectively sensitive to noise and whether failure to habituate to environmental noise may also represent a biological indicator of vulnerability to psychiatric disorder. In these studies noise sensitivity was found to be moderately stable and associated with current psychiatric disorder and a disposition to negative affectivity. Noise sensitivity levels did fall with recovery from depression but still remained high, suggesting an underlying high level of noise sensitivity. Noise sensitivity was related to higher tonic skin conductance and heart rate and greater defence/startle responses during noise exposure in the laboratory. Noise sensitive people attend more to noises, discriminate more between noises, find noises more threatening and out of their control, and react to, and adapt to noises more slowly than less noise sensitive people.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

An analysis of relationships among environmental noise, annoyance and sensitivity to noise, and the consequences for health and sleep

Abstract: The complex relationship among long-term exposure to environmental noise, self-reports of health, and sleep was investigated in a multifactorial design. Forty-seven women and 35 men living beside a street with moderate to heavy traffic took part. They answered questions concerning health complaints, usual sleep patterns, sleep the actual week of testing, their subjective responses to noise, psychosocial relations, anxiety, stressful life events, type A behavior, and attitudinal factors that could explain their responses to noise. No detrimental relations among objective noise levels, health, and sleep could be shown. There were, however, strong correlations between the subjective noise responses of annoyance and sensitivity and health complaints. Only women revealed a relationship between poor sleep quality and sensitivity. The stronger relationship among noise sensitivity, health complaints, and poor sleep quality for women than for men could be explained by the degree of exposure to noise as evidenced by their longer residence and greater time spent at home.

Road traffic noise, noise sensitivity and psychological disorder

Abstract: The relationship between traffic noise exposure and psychological morbidity was assessed using the population-based Caerphilly Collaborative Survey of 2398 men from Caerphilly, South Wales. The findings showed that traffic noise exposure levels were strongly associated with annoyance to noise. Noise-sensitive men were more likely to be highly annoyed by noise exposure than less noise-sensitive men. There was no direct association between noise exposure level and psychological morbidity but there were provocative interactions with noise sensitivity. The role of noise sensitivity is discussed as an indicator of vulnerability to environmental stressors and a measure of negative affectivity and over-reporting.

Loudness and Annoyance Response to Simulated Outdoor and Indoor Sonic Booms

Abstract: The sonic boom simulator of the Langley Research Center was used to quantify subjective loudness and annoyance response to simulated indoor and outdoor sonic boom signatures The indoor signatures were derived from the outdoor signatures by application of house filters that approximated the noise reduction characteristics of a residential structure Two indoor listening situations were simulated: one with the windows open and the other with the windows closed Results were used to assess loudness and annoyance as sonic boom criterion measures and to evaluate several metrics as estimators of loudness and annoyance The findings indicated that loudness and annoyance were equivalent criterion measures for outdoor booms but not for indoor booms Annoyance scores for indoor booms were significantly higher than indoor loudness scores Thus annoyance was recommended as the criterion measure of choice for general use in assessing sonic boom subjective effects Perceived Level was determined to be the best estimator of annoyance for both indoor and outdoor booms, and of loudness for outdoor booms It was recommended as the metric of choice for predicting sonic boom subjective effects

Anthropometric Shape Analysis Strategy for Design of Personalwear

Abstract: The diversity of morphologies may be a source of annoyance to the designer of personal equipment. For those involved in design problems, the user population seems to have considerable variability i...

Subjective response to environmental noise in park and annoying threshold

Abstract: In this paper,we get the probability of annoyance under each central sound level, dealing with all the information of subjective responses to the environmental noise in the park by principle of fuzzy mathematics Also we get the annoying threshold of the environmental noise in different districts of the park:63 3dBA in grassy area, 63 6dBA in enjoyable area and is 70 9dBA tea room and restaurant The method of getting annoying threshold in this paper is more reasonable than the method of psychical and physical calculation

The Effect of Onset Rate on Aircraft Noise Annoyance. Volume 3. Hybrid Own-Home Experiment

Abstract: : This report presents the results of the third in a proposed sequence of studies to investigate human annoyance to noise from low-altitude military training route (MTR) flight operations. The sequence ranges from laboratory studies, in which the physical and social parameters are well controlled, but highly artificial, to field attitudinal surveys, in which these parameter are largely uncontrolled, but the setting is natural. In this third study, subjects were exposed to both real and recorded MTR noise events in their own homes for a period of four weeks. In the laboratory study it was found that MTR sounds having onset rates faster than 30 dB/second caused annoyance beyond what would be expected from the corresponding sound exposure level (SEL). The best fit to the data was found to be an onset rate adjustment to SEL, which has the form of a linear relation on a dB versus log (rate) scale, from 0 dB at a rate of 30 dB/second to 11 dB at 150 dB/second. The rented home study confirmed the laboratory onset rate adjustment, although the adjustment was found to begin at 15 dB/second rather than at 30 dB/second. The present study continued to confirm the existence of an onset rate effect. it also confirmed the equal energy principle. However, it did not show any dependence of annoyance on the sporadicity of the events.