Loud music, dogs barking and bad sound isolation are the main noise complaints that Edinburgh’s Environmental and Consumer Service receive from Edinburgh residents.
The main health problem occurring from noise pollution is stress says the Environmental and Consumer Service.
BadVibes project aims to make the world better sounding and less stressful. “The idea is to get people thinking about the complex way we listen to and interpret sounds”; said Professor Cox, lead scientist in this field of research. “We hope to learn about what the worst sound in the world is, and maybe why it is the worst. This is important because noise significantly affects our quality of life.”
For some, the worst noise in the world can be scraping fingernails on a blackboard or the high-pitched screams of drunken girls.
Tessa Davies, student in Napier University, Edinburgh, says: “The sound of someone retching makes my skin crawl.”
Pr. Cox’s earlier work found that the unpleasantness came from the middle pitches. He said: “This is surprising because you might expect high frequencies to be the most unpleasant; after all, the thing that stands out about the fingernails down a blackboard is the shrill, high-frequency nature of the sound”..
Noise pollution such as traffic, airplanes, trains or construction also affects our ways of living and makes it more stressful.
Cheuk Fan Ng, Professor in Environmental Psychology, from University Drive, Athabasca, Canada, led a study on the Effects of Building Construction Noise on Residents. He took a group of 157 students living by a construction site who he followed and questioned during a year.
Annoyance, disrupted sleep, bad mood and an increase in the frequency of everyday errors, were the major outcomes noted by residents victim of noise pollution.
“Building construction noise will: (1) cause emotional upset and affect residents’ physical well-being negatively; (2) interfere with residents activities that involve speech or sound communications; and (3) affects residents’ studying negatively”, said Professor Cheuk Fan Ng.
“Unpredictable or irregular noise may disrupt performance of mental tasks that require learning or short-time retention of new information”, wrote Pr. Cheuk Fan Ng.
Cox stressed:” If you have control over the noise, it tends to be less annoying. But if you are fearful of the source then it usually makes it worse.”
Claire Charras 