โ Scribed by M.E. Bryan; W. Tempest
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
Britain has a number of laws and regulations which are aimed at controlling excessive noise. These laws appear to be based on the assumption that everyone reacts in a similar manner when exposed to noise, and the criteria which the laws use are concerned with establishing at what 'level" of noise exposure the 'average' person is likely to suffer annoyance.
In this paper we examine some of the available evidence on how individuals react to noise, and demonstrate that the concept of the 'average' person is relatively meaningless. This conclusion further indicates that the criteria for noise control are inadequate in that, for a substantial number of people, they do not provide the protection intended. It is shown that not only is there a wide 'spread' in the degree of annoyance due to noise, but also the population tends to show inhomogeneity in the nature of its response. There seem to be at least two types of person, one who 'learns to live with' the noise, and gradually adapts to it, and another type who becomes progressively more disturbed by it, or, it could be said, is 'sensitive to noise'. There is also evidence that, in some circumstances, factors relating to the individual can be more valuable in predicting the response to noise than is the nature of the noise itself.
These findings imply that, for adequate protection o f the individual against annoying noise, we must not only study the noise, but also the personality and personal factors of the individual.
๐ SIMILAR VOLUMES