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.

Noise annoyance during COVID-19 lockdown: A research of public opinion before and during the pandemic.

Abstract: Strict lockdown strategies to stop the spread of COVID-19 have caused a decrease in environmental noise levels and introduced new noise conditions in dwellings. The present study has investigated the impact of the forced lockdown in Turkey on noise annoyances due to traffic, neighbors, and personal dwellings, as well as the concern of being heard by neighbors, and overall dwelling satisfaction in an online questionnaire. The stress and anxiety levels of respondents were also investigated. The survey obtained 1053 respondents. Additionally, environmental noise levels were measured over 24-h at two locations and compared with results before the pandemic. The results clearly exhibit that environmental noise levels and annoyance due to the noise levels dropped significantly. The annoyance drop was larger in previously noisier environments than previously tranquil locations. Noise annoyance due to neighbor noise did not change significantly; however, noise annoyance due to one's own dwelling increased. The results also confirmed an overall increase in dwelling satisfactions indicating a correlation between dwelling satisfaction and lower environmental noise levels. Although the results confirmed that noise annoyance was positively correlated with stress and anxiety levels, the change of annoyance between before and during lockdown was shown to be independent from the stress and anxiety level.

Road traffic noise, noise sensitivity, noise annoyance, psychological and physical health and mortality.

Abstract: Both physical and psychological health outcomes have been associated with exposure to environmental noise. Noise sensitivity could have the same moderating effect on physical and psychological health outcomes related to environmental noise exposure as on annoyance but this has been little tested. A cohort of 2398 men between 45 and 59 years, the longitudinal Caerphilly Collaborative Heart Disease study, was established in 1984/88 and followed into the mid-1990s. Road traffic noise maps were assessed at baseline. Psychological ill-health was measured in phase 2 in 1984/88, phase 3 (1989/93) and phase 4 (1993/7). Ischaemic heart disease was measured in clinic at baseline and through hospital records and records of deaths during follow up. We examined the longitudinal associations between road traffic noise and ischaemic heart disease morbidity and mortality using Cox Proportional Hazard Models and psychological ill-health using Logistic Regression; we also examined whether noise sensitivity and noise annoyance might moderate these associations. We also tested if noise sensitivity and noise annoyance were longitudinal predictors of ischaemic heart disease morbidity and mortality and psychological ill-health. Road traffic noise was not associated with ischaemic heart disease morbidity or mortality. Neither noise sensitivity nor noise annoyance moderated the effects of road traffic noise on ischaemic heart disease morbidity or mortality. High noise sensitivity was associated with lower ischaemic heart disease mortality risk (HR = 0.74, 95%CI 0.57, 0.97). Road traffic noise was associated with Phase 4 psychological ill-health but only among those exposed to 56-60dBA (fully adjusted OR = 1.82 95%CI 1.07, 3.07). Noise sensitivity moderated the association of road traffic noise exposure with psychological ill-health. High noise sensitivity was associated longitudinally with psychological ill-health at phase 3 (OR = 1.85 95%CI 1.23, 2.78) and phase 4 (OR = 1.65 95%CI 1.09, 2.50). Noise annoyance predicted psychological ill-health at phase 4 (OR = 2.47 95%CI 1.00, 6.13). Noise sensitivity is a specific predictor of psychological ill-health and may be part of a wider construct of environmental susceptibility. Noise sensitivity may increase the risk of psychological ill-health when exposed to road traffic noise. Noise annoyance may be a mediator of the effects of road traffic noise on psychological ill-health.

Annoyance perception of sound and information extraction.

Abstract: The judgment of annoyance of distorted speech differs radically for different language groups. The results show that those who do comprehend a spoken language, base their annoyance judgments on the informational content extracted while those who do not base it on the perceptual characteristics of meaningless sound (particularly loudness). A series of distorted German speech sounds were presented to two subject groups consisting of native Swedish and English speakers, and the results were compared with earlier results from groups of native German and Polish subjects. The 50 stimuli were generated from the very same speech signal distorted in two principle ways, either with repeated silent gaps or superimposed noise impulses. The perceived annoyance of the distorted speech was judged both by category scaling for all subject groups, and as a control for ‘‘ceiling’’ effects, also by magnitude estimation for the Swedish and the English subjects. There is a pronounced tendency for German subjects to judge the G...

Annoyance and health risk caused by military low-altitude flight noise

Abstract: Effects of noise of low-flying military jet aircraft were investigated from demoscopic and epidemiological points of view. Areas with different low-altitude flight noise exposure were compared with one another as to subjective annoyance, casual blood pressure and ear symptoms. With the same energy equivalent sound pressure level (Leq), the subjective disturbance caused by military low-altitude flight noise was essentially greater than that due to ordinary flight noise (in the neighbourhood of civil airports). A comparison of several areas revealed that frequencies of ear symptoms (tinnitus lasting more than one hour and permanent hearing threshold shifts of > 30 dB) were higher only in areas where maximal flight noise levels considerably exceeded 115 dB (A) accompanied by rapid noise level increases. Blood pressure measurements yielded significantly higher values (group difference 9 mm Hg systolic) in girls living in these highly exposed areas. Acoustic limits are proposed with respect to public health.