Effect of Road and Railway Sound on Psychological and Physiological Responses in an Office Environment
Abstract
:1. Introduction
- (a)
- What are the psychophysiological effects of different traffic sounds in office spaces?;
- (b)
- Do the increases in sound levels interfere with the psychophysiological responses to traffic sounds?;
- (c)
- Do the other factors (gender and exposure time) interfere with the psychophysiological responses to traffic sounds?;
- (d)
- Are there correlations between psychological responses and physiological responses under the impact of traffic sounds?
2. Methodology
2.1. Participants
2.2. Experiment Stimuli
2.3. Measures
2.4. Experimental Procedure
2.5. Data Analysis
3. Results
3.1. Effect of Traffic Sounds on Psychological Responses
3.2. Effect of Traffic Sounds on Physiological Responses
3.3. Relationship between Psychological and Physiological Responses
4. Discussion
5. Conclusions
- (1)
- The traffic sounds brought considerable impacts on the psychophysiological responses of the acoustic environment in office space, which depended on the sound type. Without considering the interaction with other indoor noises, all traffic sounds were found to have adverse psychological effects on the overall acoustic environment. As for the physiological responses, the effect of sound type was found to interact with the sound level and non-acoustic factors (gender);
- (2)
- The sound level was found to be the most influential factor on the psychophysiological responses. The negative effects of traffic sounds on psychological responses were found to constantly increase with the increase in the sound level. The peak sound level showed better performance than the equivalent sound level in evaluating the perceptual impact of short-term sound exposure. The relationship between sound level and physiological parameters varied among different sound groups. The variation in sound level hardly affected the participants’ HR and EDA when exposed to the conventional train and tram sound. In contrast, HR and EDA were significantly affected by the levels of road traffic sounds and high-speed train sounds;
- (3)
- Non-acoustic factors were found to be influential on the physiological responses. The HR was found to decrease with the increase in exposure time. Gender was found to be an important factor of the physiological parameters, which also had an interaction effect with the noise level;
- (4)
- Relatively weak correlations between the psychological evaluations and HR were found, whereas the relationship between the psychological attributes and EDA was found to be significantly affected by the sound type.
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Variables | Psychological Response | F | Sig. | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Sound Type | AC | 2.93 | 0.03 * | 0.02 |
AN | 4.58 | 0.00 ** | 0.04 | |
AR | 1.40 | 0.24 | 0.01 | |
PL | 2.19 | 0.09 | 0.02 | |
SPL (LAeq) | AC | 80.86 | 0.00 ** | 0.32 |
AN | 98.56 | 0.00 ** | 0.36 | |
AR | 75.45 | 0.00 ** | 0.30 | |
PL | 74.41 | 0.00 ** | 0.30 | |
Gender | AC | 0.65 | 0.42 | 0.00 |
AN | 0.66 | 0.42 | 0.00 | |
AR | 0.00 | 0.96 | 0.00 | |
PL | 0.00 | 0.96 | 0.00 | |
Sound Type * SPL | AC | 0.38 | 0.89 | 0.01 |
AN | 0.46 | 0.84 | 0.01 | |
AR | 0.29 | 0.94 | 0.00 | |
PL | 0.17 | 0.98 | 0.00 |
Variables | HR | EDA | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
F | Sig. | F | Sig. | |||
Gender | 60.389 | 0.000 ** | 0.03 | 57.247 | 0.000 ** | 0.03 |
Time | 2.699 | 0.019 * | 0.01 | 0.113 | 0.989 | 0.00 |
Sound Type | 0.456 | 0.713 | 0.00 | 2.293 | 0.076 | 0.00 |
SPL | 6.033 | 0.002 ** | 0.01 | 3.615 | 0.027 * | 0.00 |
Sound Type * SPL | 2.365 | 0.028 * | 0.01 | 2.835 | 0.009 ** | 0.01 |
Sound Type * Gender | 0.261 | 0.853 | 0.00 | 6.079 | 0.000 ** | 0.01 |
Sound Type * Time | 0.102 | 1.000 | 0.00 | 0.006 | 1.000 | 0.00 |
Pearson Correlation | Psychological | Physiological | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
AC | AN | AR | PL | EDA | HR | ||
Psychological | AC | 1.000 | |||||
AN | −0.986 ** | 1.000 | |||||
AR | −0.993 ** | 0.986 ** | 1.000 | ||||
PL | 0.992 ** | −0.987 ** | −0.998 ** | 1.000 | |||
Physiological | EDA | −0.092 | 0.131 | 0.064 | −0.062 | 1.000 | |
HR | −0.689 * | 0.624 * | 0.691 * | −0.687 * | 0.124 | 1.000 |
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Yu, B.; Wen, L.; Bai, J.; Chai, Y. Effect of Road and Railway Sound on Psychological and Physiological Responses in an Office Environment. Buildings 2022, 12, 6. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings12010006
Yu B, Wen L, Bai J, Chai Y. Effect of Road and Railway Sound on Psychological and Physiological Responses in an Office Environment. Buildings. 2022; 12(1):6. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings12010006
Chicago/Turabian StyleYu, Boya, Linjie Wen, Jie Bai, and Yuying Chai. 2022. "Effect of Road and Railway Sound on Psychological and Physiological Responses in an Office Environment" Buildings 12, no. 1: 6. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings12010006