Sensitivity analysis of changes in human physiological indicators observed in soundscapes

Abstract

The objective of this study was to determine changes in physiological indicators with time in different soundscapes and their correlation with the results of subjective restorative evaluation. Physiological indicators including the heart rate (HR), amplitude of the R-wave (ΔR), heart rate variability (HRV), electroencephalography alpha reactivity (α-EEG), electroencephalography beta reactivity (β-EEG), eye blink frequency (BF), respiratory frequency (RF), respiratory depth (RD), skin conductance level (SCL), and skin temperature (ST) were measured and analysed through audio-visual reduction in a laboratory, and the obtained data were compared with the answers to a perceived restorativeness soundscape scale survey. Through the analysis of variance by a repeated measures method, it was found that all physiological indicators (except for α-EEG) changed after one minute of measurements. Furthermore, BF and ST were not affected by the changes in the soundscape type, and the natural sound decreased the levels of HR, RF, and RD and increased the values of ΔR, HRV, α-EEG, and β-EEG. In addition, a

The Relationship between Different Types of Alarm Sounds and Children’s Perceived Risk Based on Their Physiological Responses

“…For further verification, we performed a paired t-test on the results, as seen in Table 4. We use the p-value of 0.05 to distinguish the level of significance [27,31,34]. The results of the t-test showed that alarm sounds had a significant influence on the three physiological indicators SC, SCT and SCL (p < 0.05) of children, which was basically consistent with the results of studies on EDA indicators and risk perception in adults [27,37,44].…”

“…Of the 42 subjects, one had to go to a Taekwondo class and failed to complete all the experiments due to time conflicts, so the data of a total of 41 subjects were collected. A database containing the final results was created using IBM SPSS 25.0 [27,31,50,51] to evaluate the effect of different types of alarm sounds on the risk perception of the children in the evacuation experiments.…”

“…Alvarsson suggested a half-life of SCL of 120 s [49]. Therefore, in order to avoid the interference of physiological indicators between two adjacent experiments, 10 min were given for rest between experiments [27,31]. Experiments of different groups of children took place in their respective classrooms, which were not on the same floor, so they would not communicate or interfere with each other.…”

“…The existing research indicated that sound had a significant effect on the function of the human nervous system [28][29][30][31]. The human nervous system is divided into the Central Nervous System (CNS) and the Peripheral Nervous System (PNS).…”

“…For further verification, we performed a paired t-test on the results, as seen in Table 4. We use the p-value of 0.05 to distinguish the level of significance [27,31,34]. The results of the t-test showed that alarm sounds Table 3 shows the EDA scores at baseline and after exposure to the three types of alarm sounds.…”