Human Response to Traffic Noise: Insights from Psychophysiological Signals
摘要
Traffic noise exposure in Indian cities is a major environmental stressor, leading to psychological and physiological health impacts, including annoyance, stress, cardiovascular issues, sleep deprivation, and cognitive impairment. These impacts are primarily assessed using subjective health surveys, which can lead to high ambiguity. This chapter presents an alternative approach to assessing the effect of traffic noise exposure by analyzing psychophysiological signals collected during a listening experiment. This chapter is explained in the form of an experiment which was conducted with 30 participants (15 males and 15 females) exposed to 30 traffic noise stimuli, clustered into silent, active, and loud scenarios. Psychophysiological signals such as EEG, ECG, and SCR were collected in response to noise exposure. The Spearman correlation analysis showed a significant reduction in Alpha band amplitude, especially in the frontal regions, with an increase in loudness level (r = −0.43, p < 0.05), suggesting increased stress and potential implications for cognitive functioning and emotional well-being. The HRV analysis revealed a significant increase in heart rate with an increase in loudness (r = 0.37, p < 0.05). A significant relationship was also observed between skin conductance response and loudness (r = 0.42, p < 0.05), indicating an increase in stress. These changes in psychophysiological signals were also assessed alongside changes in perceived affective qualities (PAQs) and the developed noise clusters. These findings emphasize the complex interplay between noise perceptions and the autonomic nervous system’s response to auditory stimuli, strengthening our understanding of how noise pollution affects health.