Annoyance

About: Annoyance is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2015 publications have been published within this topic receiving 38300 citations. The topic is also known as: annoy.

Road traffic noise and annoyance-an increasing environmental health problem

Abstract: Traffic noise, which is steadily increasing, is considered to be an important environmental health problem. The aim of this study was to estimate the degree of annoyance and sleep disturbance related to road traffic noise in residential settings in an urban community. The study is based on a questionnaire on environmentally related health effects distributed to a stratified random sample of 1000 individuals, 19-80 years old, in a municipality with heavy traffic in the county of Stockholm. The response rate was 76%. The individual noise exposure was estimated using evaluated noise dispersion models and local noise assessments. Frequent annoyance was reported by 13% of subjects exposed to Leq 24 hr >50 dBA compared to 2% among those exposed to 50 dBA and by 13% at levels 55 dBA Leq 24 hr). There was some habituation to noise for problems related to sleep but not for annoyance. The prevalence of both annoyance and sleep problems was higher when bedroom windows were facing streets. People living in apartments had more sleep problems compared to people living in detached or semi-detached houses. In conclusion traffic noise exposure, even at low levels, was associated with annoyance and sleep disturbance. Access to a quiet side seemed to be a major protective factor for noise related problems.

A comparison between exposure-response relationships for wind turbine annoyance and annoyance due to other noise sources.

Abstract: Surveys have shown that noise from wind turbines is perceived as annoying by a proportion of residents living in their vicinity, apparently at much lower noise levels than those inducing annoyance due to other environmental sources. The aim of the present study was to derive the exposureresponse relationship between wind turbine noise exposure in Lden and the expected percentage annoyed residents and to compare it to previously established relationships for industrial noise and transportation noise. In addition, the influence of several individual and situational factors was assessed. On the basis of available data from two surveys in Sweden (N¼341, N¼754) and one survey in the Netherlands (N¼725), a relationship was derived for annoyance indoors and for annoyance outdoors at the dwelling. In comparison to other sources of environmental noise, annoyance due to wind turbine noise was found at relatively low noise exposure levels. Furthermore, annoyance was lower among residents who received economical benefit from wind turbines and higher among residents for whom the wind turbine was visible from the dwelling. Age and noise sensitivity had similar effects on annoyance to those found in research on annoyance by other sources.

Exploring the relationship between noise sensitivity, annoyance and health-related quality of life in a sample of adults exposed to environmental noise.

Abstract: The relationship between environmental noise and health is poorly understood but of fundamental importance to public health. This study estimated the relationship between noise sensitivity, noise annoyance and health-related quality of life in a sample of adults residing close to the Auckland International Airport, New Zealand. A small sample (n = 105) completed surveys measuring noise sensitivity, noise annoyance, and quality of life. Noise sensitivity was associated with health-related quality of life; annoyance and sleep disturbance mediated the effects of noise sensitivity on health.

A No-Reference Metric for Perceived Ringing Artifacts in Images

Abstract: A novel no-reference metric that can automatically quantify ringing annoyance in compressed images is presented. In the first step a recently proposed ringing region detection method extracts the regions which are likely to be impaired by ringing artifacts. To quantify ringing annoyance in these detected regions, the visibility of ringing artifacts is estimated, and is compared to the activity of the corresponding local background. The local annoyance score calculated for each individual ringing region is averaged over all ringing regions to yield a ringing annoyance score for the whole image. A psychovisual experiment is carried out to measure ringing annoyance subjectively and to validate the proposed metric. The performance of our metric is compared to existing alternatives in literature and shows to be highly consistent with subjective data.