Testing Noise in the Field

Abstract

Noise, or unwanted sound, exposure has been shown to have a wide range of negative physical and psychological effects. Although situational context, sound characteristics, and individual expectation affect the experience of noise and its related outcomes, the personality trait of noise sensitivity also plays a critical role in assessing noise impacts. As the most widely used 21item Noise Sensitivity Scale measure of sensitivity is often too long to administer in time-sensitive field settings, the authors conducted five studies to create and validate a shortened, field friendly version of the original, longer measure of noise sensitivity. The resulting five-item measure of noise sensitivity was shown to be internally consistent, temporally stable, highly correlated with the original measure, and predictive of noise-related outcomes such as attitudes toward specific noise, acceptability ratings of noise events, and motivations for visiting quiet locations. The applied value of the scale and implications for facilitating future research are discussed.

Human Responses to Simulated Motorized Noise in National Parks

“…The scale ranged from "Disagree strongly" (coded 1) to "Agree strongly" (coded 6). The 5-item short form of the NSS (NSS-SF) has been validated previously (Benfield et al, 2012), and it produces consistent psychometric results as the original 21-item NSS. Demographic variables, including sex, age, college major, and zip code were obtained at baseline.…”

Ecosystem services enhanced through soundscape management link people and wildlife

“…Conversely to anthropogenic noise, natural sounds are shown to facilitate stress recovery (Aletta et al, 2018;Alvarsson et al, 2010), improve cognitive performance (Abbott et al, 2016), heighten emotional affect (Benfield et al, 2014) and have other restorative effects in people (Krzywicka & Byrka, 2017). These cognitive and emotional benefits derived from interactions with nature are important psychological ecosystem services provided by biodiversity (Bratman et al, 2012).…”

Motorized Recreation Sounds Influence Nature Scene Evaluations: The Role of Attitude Moderators

“…While some work has been done with personality traits (e.g., Benfield et al, 2013), the same cannot be said of other individual visitor variables such as motivation. Research has already demonstrated that visitor motivations for quiet can alter the perceived acceptability of anthropogenic sounds (Marin et al, 2011), so it seems highly probable that such a motivation for quiet would also affect ratings of scenes in the presence of sounds or changes in affective state caused by the presence of those sounds.…”