Effects of low-frequency noise on human cognitive performances in laboratory

Abstract

Indoor working and living environments are increasingly exposed to low-frequency noise sources. The wellknown relationship between noise conditions and effects on human health requires the development of a proper procedure to evaluate the stress due to acoustical factors. For this purpose, an experiment, based on Soft Metrology principles, was designed to measure the changes of cognitive and physiological parameters (response time and heart rate) on a sample of 25 male and female volunteers, aged 19-29 years, exposed to three types of noise in a hemi-anechoic room. Participants were involved in a cognitive task (Stroop effect) for 10 min in four different conditions: silence, stochastic broadband multi-tonal noise (BBN), stochastic lowfrequency multi-tonal noise (LFN1), and low-frequency stationary noise with regular amplitude modulation (LFN2). All sounds were reproduced by two loudspeakers at equivalent sound pressure level of 93 dB. Results showed that in noise conditions, subjects reduced their response times. This is an evidence of growing stress, according to arousal theory. In particular, LFN1 and LFN2 produced cognitive stress comparable to stochastic broadband multi-tonal noise. Furthermore, subdividing the subjects in extroverts and introverts through the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire-Revised psychological test, it was shown that LFN1 and LFN2 produced higher stress effects than stochastic broadband multi-tonal noise on the cognitive performances and a physiological stress comparable to stochastic broadband multi-tonal noise in introverts, whereas no effects were observed in extroverts, as hypothesized by Eysenck. This result highlights the necessity in the future to consider the personality parameter as a key factor in the evaluation of the effects of noise on humans.

Low-Frequency Noise and Its Main Effects on Human Health—A Review of the Literature between 2016 and 2019

“…Rossi et al [65] measured the changes in cognitive and physiological parameters-in particular, the response time and heart rate-of participants when exposed to tonal noise (silence or multi-band stochastic noise), low-frequency and low-frequency stochastic noise, and low-frequency stationary noise with regular amplitude modulation.…”

“…Rossi et al [65] concluded that, on average, participants decreased their response times in noise conditions compared to silence conditions; that is, there was evidence of increasing stress, according to the excitation theory. In this study, they observed that participant exposure to low-frequency noise 1 and 2 (LFN1 and LFN2, respectively) produced cognitive stress comparable to stochastic multi-tonal broadband noise (BBN).…”

SCaLAr – A surrounding spherical cap loudspeaker array for flexible generation and evaluation of virtual acoustic environments

“…In order to continuously approach ecological validity, objective evaluations of simulation methods for VAEs with room acoustics [35] should be supplemented by perceptual evaluations to substantiate their validity [36,37]. Combined with physiological measures, nonintrusive, controlled experimental environments further represent a tool for assessing environmental noise effects [38]. However, applications are not restricted to the auditory domain but can be extended to multimodal experiments using head-mounted displays for the exploration of auditory perception and cognition [39,40].…”

Low Frequency Sound Absorption by Optimal Combination Structure of Porous Metal and Microperforated Panel

“…Increasing noise has been treated as one of the four major environmental pollutants [2]. In particular, it has been reported that low frequency noise could result in hearing loss, headaches, sleep disturbance, inattention, and so on, and is therefore seen as one of the reasons for deterioration in people's quality of life [3]. Thus, methods and practices to reduce low frequency environmental noise are considered as one of the research focuses in the field of acoustical environment protection [4][5][6].…”