Hearing-loss risk dominates noise research because it is predictable from sound properties

Evidence

An essential question in the field of noise control is how to estimate the negative effects of noise. The majority of the related research discusses the risk of hearing loss, while the disturbance and annoyance caused by noise are less studied. There are two reasons for this. First, the risk of hearing loss is primarily a physiological phenomenon, where the induced risk is mainly predicted by the properties of the sound. Second, disturbance and annoyance are more dependent on the individual and on the situation. For example, loud music may be a ‘fantastic aesthetic experience’ or ‘terrible noise’ depending on the individual and on the situation. — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 2680

Categorization

• XREF: The same loud music as pleasure-or-terror depending on context echoes the subjective/objective noise tension from the soundscape literature.