Acoustics/Sound

Operating rooms that are too noisy are just as difficult to work in as offices where ambient noise is too loud.  Bush, Way, Long, Weighing, Ritchie, Jones, and Shinn investigated working in operating rooms: “Ambient background noise—whether it is the sound of loud surgical equipment, talkative team members, or music—is a patient and surgical safety factor that can affect auditory processing among surgeons and the members of their team in the operating room (OR) . . . .

Metin and his colleagues investigated links between background sound and impulsive behavior by people with ADHD.  They determined that when background “pink noise” was added to a test environment “Children with ADHD made more impulsive choices than controls. Adding noise did not reduce impulsive choice in ADHD.” Previous research indicates that white noise helps students with ADHD concentrate (https://researchdesignconnections.com/pub/children-adhd-concentrate-bett...).

A Swedish study has empirically linked stress and hypersensitivity to sounds.  Hasson, Theorell, Bergquist, and Canlon learned that  “Women suffering from stress-related exhaustion exhibit hypersensitivity to sounds when exposed to stress.”  During the study reported, men and women “between the ages of 23 and 71 with low, medium or high levels of 'emotional exhaustion' [experienced] five minutes of experimentally induced physical (hand in ice), mental (performance on a stress test) and social (being observed) stress.”  Women participating in the study “