The restorative potential of soundscapes: A physiological investigation

Medvedev, Oleg N.; Shepherd, Daniel; Hautus, Michael J.

doi:10.1016/j.apacoust.2015.03.004

Cited by 189 publications

(152 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…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).…”

Section: Physiological Responsesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Zhou

Jia

et al. 2019

IJERPH

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Due to differences in cognitive ability and physiological development, the evacuation characteristics of children are different from those of adults. This study proposes a novel method of using wearable sensors to collect data (e.g., electrodermal activity, EDA; heart rate variability, HRV) on children's physiological responses, and to continuously and quantitatively evaluate the effects of different types of alarm sounds during the evacuation of children. In order to determine the optimum alarm for children, an on-site experiment was conducted in a kindergarten to collect physiological data for responses to different types of alarm sounds during the evacuation of 42 children of different ages. The results showed that: (1) The alarm sounds led to changes in physiological indicators of children aged 3-6 years, and the effects of different types of alarm sounds on EDA and HRV activities were significantly different (p < 0.05). Skin conductance (SC), skin conductance tonic (SCT) and skin conductance level (SCL) can be used as the main indicators for analysing EDA of children in this experiment (p < 0.05), and the indicators of ultralow frequency (ULF) and very low frequency (VLF) for HRV were not affected by the type of alarm sounds (p > 0.05). (2) Unlike adults, kindergarten children were more susceptible to the warning siren. The combined voice and warning alarm had optimal effects in stimulating children to perceive risk. (3) For children aged 3-6 years, gender had a significant impact on children's reception to evacuation sound signals (p < 0.05): Girls are more sensitive than boys in receiving evacuation sound signals, similar to findings of studies of risk perception of adult males and females. In addition, the higher the age, the greater the sensitivity to evacuation sound signals, which accords with results of previous studies on the evacuation dynamics of children.

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Section: Physiological Responsesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Zhou

Jia

et al. 2019

IJERPH

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“…Listening to soundscapes evoked significant activity in a number of auditory receptors in the brain [6]. Compared with soundscapes that evoked no (neutral) emotional response, those evoking a pleasant or unpleasant emotional response engaged an additional neural circuit including the right amygdala (an area of the brain which processes memory and emotional response) [7]. A novel finding from this research is that urban soundscapes with similar loudness can have dramatically different effects on the brain's response to the environment.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Experience sampling: Assessing urban soundscapes using in-situ participatory methods

2017

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“…Based on previous studies, they could be from three main categories, namely physiological/biological, psychological, and physical/psychoacoustical, with an additional category of contextual factors (e.g., visual, cultural) . Physiological/biological factors, which have been paid attention to recently, are proven to have considerable influence on the soundscape quality (Medvedev et al, 2015), but in this facet, relevant studies have been extremely limited. Physical/psychoacoustical factors, such as L Aeq , L 90 , loudness, sharpness, have proven to be useful but insufficient, as discussed above.…”

Section: Development and Application Of Soundscape Indices: A Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

From dBA to soundscape indices: Managing our sound environment

Kang¹

2017

Front. Eng

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While in the EU alone 80 million citizens are suffering from excessive environmental noise, the conventional approach, i.e., reduction of 'sound level', does not always deliver the required improvements in quality of life. The growing field of 'soundscape studies' is addressing this gap by considering the sound environment as perceived, in context, with an interdisciplinary approach. However, soundscapes are hugely complex, and measuring them as a basis for environmental design requires a step change to the discipline. This paper explores the need for developing 'soundscape indices', in the movement from noise control to soundscape creation, adequately reflecting levels of human comfort, the impact of which will be reminiscent of that of the Decibel scale created by Bell Systems a century ago. By analysing the soundscape design of urban open public spaces, the coherent steps for achieving this are also discussed, including characterising soundscapes by capturing soundscapes and establishing a comprehensive database; determining key factors and their influence on soundscape quality based on the database; developing, testing and validating soundscape indices; and demonstrating the applicability of the soundscape indices in the management of our sound environment.

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The restorative potential of soundscapes: A physiological investigation

Cited by 189 publications

References 19 publications

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

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

Experience sampling: Assessing urban soundscapes using in-situ participatory methods

From dBA to soundscape indices: Managing our sound environment

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