The nails-on-chalkboard aversion resists single-discipline explanation

Evidence

There is one celebrated sound which seems to epitomize the interface dilemma which I have been describing: the sound of chalk or fingernails on slate. We have shown that it is an international sound phobia. Yet physical analysis fails to reveal why it should send cold shivers up the spine. It is not extraordinarily high or loud. It is not accompanied by any hurtful action. It does not even designate anything in particular. No single discipline then is capable of accounting for its remarkable effect. When sound enigmas like this are explained—and not until then—we will know that the missing interfaces are at last falling into place. — Schafer, Murray R, The Soundscape- Our Sonic Environment…, 496

Categorization

• QUESTION: A genuine open puzzle — worth checking whether recent psychoacoustic research has since explained the chalkboard-phobia effect.
• XREF: Fits the reader’s broader theme of how acoustic biology and aesthetic disgust intersect. — connects to: Phobic objects are overdetermined by infantile affect and resist rational correction — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 589
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Schafer, Murray R, The Soundscape- Our Sonic Environment…, 496