How Pleasant Sounds Promote and Annoying Sounds Impede Health: A Cognitive Approach

Andringa, Tjeerd; Lanser, J. Jolie L.

doi:10.3390/ijerph10041439

Cited by 90 publications

(93 citation statements)

References 46 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…This is supported by findings that indicate that pleasant auditory environments are often associated with natural sounds and unpleasant ones with mechanical or human-made sounds (Andringa & Lanser, 2013;Axelsson et al, 2010;Kaplan, 1995;Pheasant, Fisher, Watts, Whitaker, & Horoshenkov, 2010;Schafer, 1977). We believe this is due to the high redundancy of easily processed indications of audible safety in natural environments (van den Bosch, Andringa, Başkent, & Vlaskamp, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 72%

See 1 more Smart Citation

A comparison of natural and non-natural soundscapes on people with severe or profound intellectual and multiple disabilities

Bosch

Andringa

Peterson

et al. 2016

Journal of Intellectual & Developmental Disability

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background Previous research indicates that there is a relationship between the auditory environment and the core affects (or mood) of people with severe or profound intellectual disability. We conducted a systematic study to further explore this relationship. Method Thirteen participants with severe or profound intellectual disability and challenging behaviour were presented with 5 different soundscapes (Beach, Forest, Urban, Music, and Silence) in a dedicated room. Direct support professionals made core affect observations before and after each trial. Results A trend was visible in the core affect observations, with a prominent and consistent increase in the frequency of observations of a Relaxed core affect across conditions. However, a greater increase in the frequency of observations of a Relaxed core affect and a greater decrease in the frequency of observations of an Interested core affect were associated with the natural conditions (Forest and Beach) rather than the non-natural conditions (Urban and Music). Conclusion This pilot study could serve an important role in raising awareness and stimulating further research regarding the auditory environments of people with severe or profound intellectual disability.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 72%

“…As mentioned above, a Silent condition was also included (simply not playing any sound). The sounds were chosen to be either calm or lively (Andringa & Lanser, 2013;. The Forest recording mainly consisted of birds and the sound of wind in the trees.…”

Section: Soundsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A comparison of natural and non-natural soundscapes on people with severe or profound intellectual and multiple disabilities

Bosch

Andringa

Peterson

et al. 2016

Journal of Intellectual & Developmental Disability

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In a recent paper (Andringa and Lanser, 2013), addressing how quiet sounds promote and annoying sounds impede health, we analyzed the words people use to appraise sonic environments (Axelsson et al, 2010). Appraisals are “ cognitive evaluations of events that are considered to be the proximal psychological determinants of emotional experience, with different combinations of appraisals corresponding to different emotions ” (Kuppens et al, 2012).…”

Section: Motivationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning autonomy in two or three steps: linking open-ended development, authority, and agency to motivation

2013

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this paper we connect open-ended development, authority, agency, and motivation through (1) an analysis of the demands of existing in a complex world and (2) environmental appraisal in terms of affordance content and the complexity to select appropriate behavior. We do this by identifying a coherent core from a wide range of contributing fields. Open-ended development is a structured three-step process in which the agent first learns to master the body and then aims to make the mind into a reliable tool. Preconditioned on success in step two, step three aims to effectively co-create an optimal living environment. We argue that these steps correspond to right-left-right hemispheric dominance, where the left hemisphere specializes in control and the right hemisphere in exploration. Control (e.g., problem solving) requires a closed and stable world that must be maintained by external authorities or, in step three, by the right hemisphere acting as internal authority. The three-step progression therefore corresponds to increasing autonomy and agency. Depending on how we appraise the environment, we formulate four qualitatively different motivational states: submission, control, exploration, and consolidation. Each of these four motivational states has associated reward signals of which the last three—successful control, discovery of novelty, and establishing new relations—form an open-ended development loop that, the more it is executed, helps the agent to become progressively more agentic and more able to co-create a pleasant-to-live-in world. We conclude that for autonomy to arise, the agent must exist in a (broad) transition region between order and disorder in which both danger and opportunity (and with that open-ended development and motivation) are defined. We conclude that a research agenda for artificial cognitive system research should include open-ended development through intrinsic motivations and ascribing more prominence to right hemispheric strengths.

show abstract

“…The dominant approach studies evaluations in relation to sound/soundscape quality (see Schulte-Fortkamp and Fiebig, 2016) and integrates aspects of pleasantness (Raimbault, 2006; Axelsson et al, 2010; Can et al, 2016; Herranz-Pascual et al, 2017, inter alios ) and quietness (Pheasant et al, 2008; Booi and van den Berg, 2012; Bloomfield, 2014; Aspuru et al, 2016), usually in contrast with annoyance (see e.g., Lercher and Schulte-Fortkamp, 2003; Andringa and Lanser, 2013). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Public Space Users’ Soundscape Evaluations in Relation to Their Activities. An Amsterdam-Based Study

et al. 2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Understanding the relationship between people and their soundscapes in an urban context of innumerable and diverse sensory stimulations is a difficult endeavor. What public space users hear and how they evaluate it in relation to their performed or intended activities can influence users’ engagement with their spaces as well as their assessment of suitability of public space for their needs or expectations. While the interaction between the auditory experience and activity is a topic gaining momentum in soundscape research, capturing the complexity of this relationship in context remains a multifaceted challenge. In this paper, we address this challenge by researching the user-soundscape relationships in relation to users’ activities. Building on previous soundscape studies, we explore the role and interaction of three potentially influencing factors in users’ soundscape evaluations: level of social interaction of users’ activities, familiarity and expectations, and we employ affordance theory to research the ways in which users bring their soundscapes into use. To this end, we employ a mixed methods design, combining quantitative, qualitative and spatial analyses to analyze how users of three public spaces in Amsterdam evaluate their soundscapes in relation to their activities. We documented the use of an urban park in Amsterdam through non-intrusive behavioral mapping to collect spatial data on observable categories of activities, and integrated our observations with on site questionnaires on ranked soundscape evaluations and free responses detailing users’ evaluations, collected at the same time from park users. One of our key findings is that solitary and socially interactive respondents evaluate their soundscapes differently in relation to their activities, with the latter offering higher suitability and lower disruption ratings than the former; this points to qualitatively different auditory experiences, analyzed further based on users’ open-ended justifications for their evaluations. We provide a methodological contribution (adding to existing soundscape evaluation methodologies), an empirical contribution (providing insight on how users explain their soundscape evaluations in relation to their activities) and a policy and design-related contribution, offering additional insight on a transferable methodology and process that practitioners can employ in their work on the built environment to address the multisensory experience of public spaces.

show abstract

How Pleasant Sounds Promote and Annoying Sounds Impede Health: A Cognitive Approach

Cited by 90 publications

References 46 publications

A comparison of natural and non-natural soundscapes on people with severe or profound intellectual and multiple disabilities

A comparison of natural and non-natural soundscapes on people with severe or profound intellectual and multiple disabilities

Learning autonomy in two or three steps: linking open-ended development, authority, and agency to motivation

Public Space Users’ Soundscape Evaluations in Relation to Their Activities. An Amsterdam-Based Study

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About