Search

This article, published in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America in 2024, discusses the history and impact of noise pollution research. The author, Schultz, reviews social surveys conducted between the 1950s and 1975 to assess the annoyance caused by various sources of noise, such as aircraft, street traffic, expressway traffic, and railroads. Schultz finds that the results of 11 surveys show consistent levels of annoyance and proposes that the average of these curves is the best predictor of community annoyance due to transportation noise. Schultz's work has had a significant impact on noise assessment, with the day-night average sound level (DNL) becoming the accepted noise metric and the percentage of highly annoyed individuals becoming the accepted noise descriptor. Despite some criticism and skepticism, Schultz's simplification of noise assessment has become the basis for current standards on environmental noise assessment. [Extracted from the article]

Miller, Czech, Hellauer, Nicholas, Lohr, Jodts, Broene, Morganstein, Kali, Zhu, Cantor, Hudnall, and Melia [(2021). HMMH Report 308520.004.001] reported the findings of a 20-airport social survey sponsored by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration that had been designed and conducted six years earlier. Their primary analyses yielded FICON (1992) style (national average and airport-specific bivariate logistic regression) functions relating aircraft noise exposure to the prevalence of high annoyance [FICON (1992). "Federal agency review of selected airport noise analysis issues" (Department of Defense, Washington, DC)]. Alternate analyses of these field observations offer pragmatic benefits for regulatory purposes. Community Tolerance Level (CTL) analysis yields a national average exposure-response predictive function that is nearly indistinguishable from that of a bivariate logistic regression function. Since it natively distinguishes dose-related from collective, non-dose influences on annoyance, it also permits a more parsimonious and readily understood account of the association between aircraft noise exposure and annoyance. Within the exposure range of primary contemporary regulatory concern, CTL analysis accounts for as much variance as FICON-style analysis in the association between noise exposure and predicted annoyance; provides a causal basis for regulation; and can be more effectively implemented and defended than a purely correlation-based analysis. In addition, CTL analysis helps to address the substantial disagreement between the findings of the literature and those of national and international technical consensus standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the study of annoyance due to wind turbines, the dominant approach takes into account only the noise generated by these sound sources. However, there are studies which show that such value alone is not enough to explain why for the majority of people living near wind turbines their noise is extremely annoying, despite the fact that the measured sound level values are relatively low. One way of solving this problem is to introduce a correction to the one-factor noise index. This has been already done by taking into account the time variability (amplitude modulation) of the sound generated by wind turbines. Another proposal is to establish a multifactorial noise index which includes not only the noise parameters, but also non-acoustic characteristics (mainly visual), which are supposed to influence the overall perception of the annoyance associated with wind turbines. These two approaches will be discussed in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The International Standards Organization (ISO) published Technical Specification (TS) 15666 in 2003 to facilitate the comparison of results from surveys on noise annoyance. This document recommends including two standardized questions with two standardized response scales in all surveys of long-term noise annoyance. A recently revised version of the TS proposes a weighting procedure for the response data to achieve a better similarity between the results from the two questions. This paper analyses the results from 43 surveys conducted according to the ISO/TS 15666 recommendations. It is shown that the average difference in the response to the two annoyance questions is equivalent to a 6 dB shift in the exposure level. The proposed weighting of the verbal response whereby response category 5 (extremely) is counted in full, and category 4 (very) is weighted by a factor 0.4 creates a greater similarity between the two responses. It is important to use a definition of prevalence of high annoyance which matches the one used for the development of the relevant noise regulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The robust assessment of noise annoyance is of key importance given that it is the most prevalent community response in populations exposed to environmental noise. In 1993, the International Commission on Biological Effects of Noise Community Response to Noise team began formalizing a standardized methodology for assessing noise annoyance which resulted in reporting guidelines and recommendations later published as a Technical Specification (TS) in 2003 by the International Standards Organization (ISO) [(2003). ISO/TS 15666]. This TS, intended to inform the international community on the quantification of the exposure-response relationship between noise exposure and annoyance, has been in circulation for nearly two decades and was updated in 2021 by ISO [(2021). ISO/TS 15666] by an international working group (ISO TC43/SC1/WG62). This paper reviews use of the 2003 TS, identifies common adaptations in use, and summarizes the revisions. Methodological issues arising from the use of the 5-point verbal and the 11-point numeric scale questions and the scoring of "highly annoyed" are discussed. The revisions are designed to encourage further standardization in noise annoyance research. The paper highlights research needs that, if addressed, would strengthen the methodology underlying the assessment of noise annoyance including multidimensional assessments of annoyance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Region of the World Health Organization (WHO) recently published revised recommendations for transportation noise exposure intended to limit adverse health effects. WHO's newly recommended "safe" limit for aircraft noise exposure is about an order of magnitude lower than the limits currently adopted by most European countries. WHO defines "safe exposure" as the level corresponding to an annoyance prevalence rate of 10% highly annoyed. The revised recommendations are based on a limited selection of post-2000 publications. About half of the cited studies rely on nonstandard questionnaires, respondent selection, and definitions of annoyance prevalence rates which over-estimate annoyance. A re-analysis of a larger and more representative selection of studies that relies on standard procedures shows that no meaningful changes in prevalence rates of high annoyance with aircraft noise have occurred and that existing evidence does not support WHO's revised recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between noise exposure and the prevalence of annoyance of transportation noise in a community is commonly characterized by a so-called dose-response curve, also referred to as exposure-response curves. Such curves are generally estimated by meta-analyses of social survey findings. Large numbers of survey respondents are generally assumed to be associated with exposure-response relationships of high accuracy and precision. The community tolerance level (CTL) approach [Fidell, Mestre, Schomer, Berry, Gjestland, Vallet, and Reid (2011). J. Acoust. Soc. Am 130, 791–806] to analysis of noise-induced annoyance in communities assumes (1) that the prevalence of a consequential degree of annoyance in communities grows as does the duration-adjusted loudness of noise exposure, and (2) that this rate-of-growth function is constant for all transportation noise sources. Because CTL analysis assumes a growth function with a single parameter the entire relationship between noise exposure and prevalence of high annoyance can be described by a single quantity—a CTL value. A re-analysis of the results of about 100 social surveys shows that a sample of about 300 respondents yields results with useful precision limits for regulatory purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This analysis of new and previously collected data was done to validate the efficacy of recommendations for limits regarding sound exposure levels at live pop concerts. After the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended limiting the sound levels at such concerts to avoid noise induced hearing damage among the audience, the actual levels at concerts where these recommendations are observed, have stabilized around 100 dBA. This is a level that is considered acceptable by WHO. At concerts where there are no limitations, however, the sound levels in the audience area are still increasing far beyond safe limits and thus the exposure may represent a serious threat to people's hearing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relationships between noise exposure and transportation noise induced annoyance have been studied extensively for several decades. The annoyance due to aircraft noise exposure is in the present paper assumed to be influenced by the day-night yearly average sound level (DNL). It has long been recognized that the annoyance also depends on non-DNL factors, but this is complicated-- resulting in a variety of different modeling strategies. Motivated by this, the community tolerance level (CTL) was introduced in 2011 for a loudness-based psychometric function. It is a single parameter that accounts for the aggregate influence of other factors. This paper suggests and investigates different methods for the measurement of the CTL. The methods are illustrated on data found in the literature, on recent surveys around two Norwegian airports, and on simulated data. The results from the presented methods differ significantly. An elementary method is shown to give a measurement of the CTL with smaller uncertainty, and is recommended as a replacement for the originally suggested least-squares method. Methods for evaluating the measurement uncertainty are also presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social surveys on noise annoyance have been conducted in five different cities in Vietnam. The surveys included both aircraft noise (three airports) and road traffic noise (five cities). The main objective for these studies was to establish dose-response functions that were representative for Vietnam. The results have been compared with results from similar surveys from other regions. Dose-response functions for aircraft noise in Vietnam showing the percentage of highly annoyed people versus the noise level are nearly identical to those presented in the European Noise Directive [European Commission (2002). http://ec.europa.eu/environment/noise/directive.htm]. For road traffic noise, however, the results indicate that people in Vietnam are more tolerant. The noise levels can be increased by 5-10 dB in order to have a response similar to the curve recommended by the European Commission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many older studies of community response to aircraft noise in fact used the same logic of questionnaire organization and wording, absolute judgment response scales, and order of questioning as more recent studies. Only five (of 65) surveys report a value of DNL of 45 dB or lower at the 10% high annoyance point.[2] Given that more than 90% of published studies indicate supposedly "unsafe" aircraft noise exposure conditions, one could reasonably expect reported risk ratios to document adverse health outcomes substantially higher than the marginal ones typically observed. Response to "Comment on 'Recent World Health Organization regulatory recommendations are not supported by existing evidence' " [J. Acoust. [Extracted from the article]

When thinking about noise annoyance, the tendency is to imagine a person's rest being disturbed by noise. Although this idea is not formulated explicitly, the majority of traditional experiments implicitly assume that absence of activity during rest represents the typical situation in which noise annoyance should be studied. We propose that research should be extended to different kinds of activities. This study focuses on one kind of activity: verbal communication. Our hypothesis is that the assessment of difficulty with speech comprehension can be replaced by a speech intelligibility measure, which could assess annoyance experienced during communicative activities. Finally, we would like to find out how noise annoyance disturbs communicative activity, and to compare this with annoyance experienced during rest. To test our hypothesis, two psychoacoustic experiments were performed. In Experiment I, speech intelligibility was measured for eight environmental noises at seven signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs). For these SNR values, the participants assessed their difficulty with speech comprehension. This established the relationships between the intelligibility functions and the difficultly in speech comprehension for all the investigated noises. The results of Experiment I show that the potential noise annoyance rating could be predicted on the basis of the speech intelligibility scores, as they give much smaller inter-individual differences between participants than an annoyance assessment test. In Experiment II, the standard 'resting' method of noise annoyance assessment was applied to the same eight noises. A comparison of the results indicated a correlation between the annoyance ratings obtained in both the experiments. Some limitations of this approach are also discussed in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Activities from 2008 to 2011 by ICBEN community response to noise team were summarized. That is, individual community-based indexes such as community tolerance Level, Zuricher Fluglarm Index (ZFI) and Frankfurter Fluglarm Index (FFI/FNI) were newly proposed, differences in railway bonus between Europe and Asia were discussed by a Swedish survey, socio-acoustic surveys were reported from developing countries, and annoyance equivalents and dominant source models were proposed as the adequate combined noise model. Furthermore, not only negative, but also positive aspects of sound were discussed as soundscape studies. Finally, seven items were listed as future team activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fidell et al. [(2011), J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 130(2), 791-806] have shown (1) that the rate of growth of annoyance with noise exposure reported in attitudinal surveys of the annoyance of aircraft noise closely resembles the exponential rate of change of loudness with sound level, and (2) that the proportion of a community highly annoyed and the variability in annoyance prevalence rates in communities are well accounted for by a simple model with a single free parameter: a community tolerance level (abbreviated CTL, and represented symbolically in mathematical expressions as Lct), expressed in units of DNL. The current study applies the same modeling approach to predicting the prevalence of annoyance of road traffic and rail noise. The prevalence of noise-induced annoyance of all forms of transportation noise is well accounted for by a simple, loudness-like exponential function with community-specific offsets. The model fits all of the road traffic findings well, but the prevalence of annoyance due to rail noise is more accurately predicted separately for interviewing sites with and without high levels of vibration and/or rattle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous relationships between noise exposure and transportation noise-induced annoyance have been inferred by curve-fitting methods. The present paper develops a different approach. It derives a systematic relationship by applying an a priori, first-principles model to the findings of forty three studies of the annoyance of aviation noise. The rate of change of annoyance with day-night average sound level (DNL) due to aircraft noise exposure was found to closely resemble the rate of change of loudness with sound level. The agreement of model predictions with the findings of recent curve-fitting exercises (cf. Miedma and Vos, 1998) is noteworthy, considering that other analyses have relied on different analytic methods and disparate data sets. Even though annoyance prevalence rates within individual communities consistently grow in proportion to duration-adjusted loudness, variability in annoyance prevalence rates across communities remains great. The present analyses demonstrate that 1) community-specific differences in annoyance prevalence rates can be plausibly attributed to the joint effect of acoustic and non-DNL related factors and (2) a simple model can account for the aggregate influences of non-DNL related factors on annoyance prevalence rates in different communities in terms of a single parameter expressed in DNL units-a 'community tolerance level.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Noise disturbs communicative activity, which in consequence creates difficulty with comprehending speech accompanied by noise. Obviously difficulty in speech comprehension leads to lower speech intelligibility scores. The idea behind this study is to check if a relationship between speech intelligibility scores and noise annoyance exists. A psychoacoustic experiment was designed to test how different types of noise impaired speech intelligibility. Nine noises were used to obtain the speech reception threshold (SRT), defined as the speech to noise ratio (SNR) corresponding to 50% correct responses. To get speech intelligibility scores, the Polish sentence matrix test (PSMT) was applied. The participants' task was to recreate a whole sentence which they had heard accompanied by noise. In addition, after each sentence, the participants were asked to assess (on a scale from 0-10) how difficult it was to comprehend the sentence heard. The difficulty with comprehending speech accompanied by noise is understood here as annoyance caused by this noise. The results show that the noise annoyance measure recorded during communicative activity is directly related to the speech intelligibility scores: 50% correctly recognized sentences corresponds to the same measure of difficulty with speech comprehension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Norwegian authorities have developed and adopted a method for assessing the magnitude of noise impact on a community in quantitative terms. The method takes into account all levels of noise annoyance experienced by all the residents in an area and transforms these data into a single quantity that can also be expressed in monetary terms. This method is contrary to other commonly used assessment methods where only a certain fraction of the impacted people, e.g. those "highly annoyed," is considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Major changes in the road traffic pattern will be implemented in Oslo in the near future. A multidisciplinary field study has been planned to assess the impact on the community concerning social, medical, and behavioral effects. More than 1000 dwellings will be affected. [n the test area new by-passes/tunnels, traffic calming, and traffic management schemes, as well as facade insulation, will be introduced. The plans for describing changes in the noise exposure situation and the community response to these changes will be discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Annoyance reactions caused by exposure to noise consisting of clearly defined noise events in a steady background have been studied. The noise resembled that of heavy vehicles passing at a short distance or aircraft flyover near an airport. With all other parameters kept constant, the annoyance experienced by the test subjects seems to be highly dependent on the time between each single noise event. Interevent intervals of the order of 2 to 5 rain seem to be the least annoying. The results from this experiment have been combined with a previously published threshold theory to make a new model for assessing the annoyance caused by typical community noise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social surveys have been the conventional means of evaluating the annoyance caused by transportation noise. Sampling and interviewing by telephone, mail, or in person are often costly and time consuming, however. Data collection by web-based survey methods are less costly and may be completed more quickly, and hence, could be conducted in countries with fewer resources. Such methods, however, raise issues about the generalizability and comparability of findings. These issues were investigated in a study of the annoyance of aircraft noise exposure around Brazil's Guarulhos Airport. The findings of 547 interviews obtained with the aid of Facebook advertisements and web-based forms were analysed with respect to estimated aircraft noise exposure levels at respondents' residences. The results were analysed to assess whether and how web-based surveys might yield generalizable noise dose-response relationships.