What Our Bodies Tell Us About Noise

Noise is defined as unwanted sound. Not only is noise unwanted, it is expensive and bad for human health. But what sounds like noise to one person might be a happy sound for someone else, so how do we study noise? This article explains how we try to understand and measure noise. We run experiments in a laboratory to measure how noises in the environment affect listeners’ thinking, stress levels, and health. We measure the listeners’ brain activity, how much they sweat, and their heartbeat changes in response to noises like car engines, train squeals, and airplanes taking off. We match up the brain activity we measure with what people tell us about their responses to noisy sounds. This work will help us to make the world sound better for everyone—the more we understand how we hear, and design better places and spaces to improve our experiences with sound.