Psycho…. what? More musings, this time on noise, loudness, and annoyance

Dear Tucson Audiologists’ Readers,

Do certain noises drive you crazy?  Have you ever noticed that some of the most irritating noises are not as loud as other, less irritating noises? Have you ever noticed that some of the sounds aren’t even what you’d call “noise”?  Do you ever wonder what your ears are up to?  So do psychoacousticians and cognitive psychologists.  Read on for some loose science with intriguing study results.

Here’s a list of the 10 top irritating sounds for people in Britain, based on a survey done by the Siemens Hearing Aid Instruments in 2006:

1. Children screaming
2. Nails on a chalkboard
3. Car alarm or house alarm
4. Dental drill
5. Dog yapping
6. Person talking with mouth full
7. Cell phone ringtones
8. Alarm clocks
9. Knife grinding on a plate
10. Person grinding teeth

Clearly, sound annoyance is not the same as sound loudness and not all noise is annoying.  When a sound is both loud and annoying, it really tops the list (e.g., baby screaming). But the sound of a person talking with a mouth full of food is highly annoying whether the person is speaking loudly or softly.  And, loudness aside, the annoying sound is speech, not “noise.”  Let’s conclude that some loud noises are especially annoying and some soft speech is especially annoying.

But what about sounds that we enjoy?   Here are some of the favorites from the same survey:

1. The glug of wine as it pours into a glass; 2) Rain falling, 3) Laughter

None of the top 3 is speech, so should we call them noise?  None are loud.  Let’s conclude that some soft noises are especially pleasing.

But consider favorites #11:  The acceleration of a powerful car and #15: Crowds chanting at a football match.

No doubt that those two favorites are noise… and loud noise at that.  Let’s conclude that some loud noises are especially pleasing.  As for speech, well it seems that NONE of the top 20 favorite sounds we like to hear are speech.

This post is in the “Psycho…” series and we think you can see why:  our brains+experiences+focus set our auditory preferences, so psychology trumps acoustics when it comes to perception and attention.  Of course, this poses huge problems for the engineering of hearing aids. When one reads that a hearing aid performs noise reduction, how do we know if that is good or bad?  If it is a favorite loud noise, do we want it reduced?  Or do we want it reduced sometimes but not at other times?  When we read that a hearing aid improves speech perception (or words to that effect), how do we know if that is good or bad?  The old joke about noise cancellation for a spouse’s speech is not entirely a joke, though that is a sometimes thing as well.

Readers:  pity the poor hearing aid designers, and take a few minutes to consider what you mean when you say you have “trouble hearing” or that you don’t like your hearing aids because they “make everything too loud.”  It will help if you break down both of those statements into exactly WHAT sounds are difficult to hear and exactly WHAT sounds are too loud.  Any help you provide is gratefully received by your audiologists and by the designers of your present and future hearing aids.

We’ll end this post by recommending you to a site called Noise Help where you can take a fast survey to rate how much different sounds annoy you.  We just took it and it was a lot of fun.  You could turn it into a party game for the holidays and help the cause at the same time!  We’ll also refer you to an attorney who hates noise in almost all forms and frequently blogs on the legality of different noises and possible remedies.  He may have some pointers for you!

Presented for your reading pleasure by your Tucson Audiologists,

Holly Hosford-Dunn PhD

And

Sharon K Hopkins MA