Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Effect of Noise on Human Psychology and Performance: A Critical Review

  • Chapter
Proceedings of the Twenty-second International Machine Tool Design and Research Conference

Summary

Human body is like a resonant and rhythmical instrument which may be excited by musical as well as noisy sounds. This excitation could be both physiological and psychological and the level of excitation is dependant on the type and the intensity of noise, duration of exposure and the person being exposed to it. Noise of low intensity may cause psychological over-excitation and hence annoyance to certain introvert persons and can cause severe irritation to people with slight psychological instability. This in turn may adversely affect the performance of an otherwise healthy and skilled worker on a demanding job.

Present health and safety acts do not cover aspects of low intensity irritating noise and its harmful effects. Engineering employers, however, should be aware of the implications in respect of possible machine breakdown and process downtime as a direct result of over uunoydnce of certain introvert workers.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. S.K. LANGER (1951) Philosophy in a new key, Harvard University Press,p.227

    Google Scholar 

  2. L.E. WEIR (1952) Proceedings of the National Association for Music Therapy, Lawrence, Kansas, The Allen Press p. 129

    Google Scholar 

  3. E.PODOLSKY (1954) Music Therapy, Philosophican, New York, p.157

    Google Scholar 

  4. A.WINOLD (195) The effects of changes in harmonic tension on the galvanic skin response, Music Therapy, p.188

    Google Scholar 

  5. H.R.REESE (1954) Music Therapy, Philosophical Library, New York,p.43

    Google Scholar 

  6. D.ELLIS and G.BRIGHTHOUSE (1954) The effects of Music on respiratory and heart rate, Music Therapy, Philosophical Library, New York, p.158

    Google Scholar 

  7. J.ALVIN (1966) Music Therapy, John Baker Publishers Ltd.

    Google Scholar 

  8. E.K.McLEAN and A.TARNOPOLSKY (1977) Noise, discomfort and mental health, Psychological Medicine, 7, p.19

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. J.A.MOLINO (1978) Annoyance and noise, Handbook of Noise Control, New York, McGraw-Hill, ch.16

    Google Scholar 

  10. B.BERGLLND, U.BERGLLND and T.LIMDVALL (1976) Scaling loudness, noisiness and annoyance of community noises, J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 60, p.119

    Google Scholar 

  11. D.E.BROADBENT (1973) Factors increasing and decreasing the effects of noise, Proc. Int. Cong. on Noise as a Public Health Problem, Dubrovnic, U.S.EPA, Washington, D.C., p.455

    Google Scholar 

  12. A.C.McKENNELL(1963) Aircraft noise annoyance around london airport, London Central Office of Information.

    Google Scholar 

  13. A.C.McKRNNELL (1978) Annoyance from concorde flights round heathrow, Freiburg, West Germany.

    Google Scholar 

  14. D.C.GLASS and J.E.SINGER (1972) Urban stress, experiments on noise and social stresses, Academic Press, New York, p.61

    Google Scholar 

  15. W.BURNS (1978) Physiological effects of noise, Handbook of Noise Control, New York, McGraw-Hill, ch.15

    Google Scholar 

  16. M.E.BRYAN and W.TEMPEST (1973) Are our noise laws adequate?, Applied Acoustics 6, p.219

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. R.RYLANDER, S.SORENSEN and A.KAYLAND (1972) Annoyance reactions from aircraft noise exposure, Journal of Sound and Vibration, 24 (4), p.419

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. E.JONSSON (1964) Annoyance reactions to external environmental factors in different sociological groups, Acta Sociologica, 7 (4), p.229

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. D.E.BROADBENT (1978) Human performsnce and noise, Handbook of Noise Control, New York, McGraw-Hill, ch.17

    Google Scholar 

  20. D.E.BROADBENT (1957) Effects of noise on behaviour, Handbook of Noise Control, London, McGraw-Hill, ch.10

    Google Scholar 

  21. R.T.WILKINSON(1963) Interaction of noise with knowledge of results and sleep deprivation, Journal of Experimental Psychology, 66, p.332

    Google Scholar 

  22. R.HOCKEY (1969) Noise and efficiency:the visual tasks, New Scientist, May, p.244

    Google Scholar 

  23. D.C.GLASS and J.E.SINGER (1973) Behavioural effects and after effects of noise, Proc. Int. Cong. on Noise as a Public Health Problem, Dubrovnic, U.S. EPA, Washington, D.C., p.409

    Google Scholar 

  24. R.HOCKEY (1973) Chances in information selection pattern in multisonic monitoring as a function of induced arousal shifts, Journal of Experimental Psychology, 101, p.35

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. D.R.DAVIES and R.HOCKEY (1966) The effects of noise and doubling of signal frequency on individual differences in visual vigilance performance, British Journal of Psychology, 57, p.381

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. M.WOODHEAD (1969) Performing a visual task in the vicinity of reproduced sonic bangs, Journal of Sound and vibration, 9, p.121

    Google Scholar 

  27. V.J.KONECNI (1975) The mediation of aggressive behaviour: General level versus anger and cognitive labelling, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 32 (4), p.706

    Google Scholar 

  28. J.P.WOHLWILL, J.L.NASER, D.M.DEJOY and H.H.FORUZAN (1976) Behavioural effects of a noisy environment:Task involvement versus passive exposure, Journal of Applied Psychology, 61 (1), p.67

    Google Scholar 

  29. P.N.BORSKY (1961) Community reactions to air force noise, Part I, WADD Technical Report, 60–689 (1)

    Google Scholar 

  30. H.O.FINKE, R.GUSKI, R.MARTIN, B.ROHRMANN?, R.SCHUMER and A.SCHUMER-KOHRS (1974) Effects of aircraft noise on man. Proc. Symp. on Noise in Transportation, Section III, paper 1, Inst. of Sound and Vibration Research, Southampton.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical and Production Engineering, Sheffield City Polytechnic, UK

    M. S. J. Hashmi

  2. Psychiatric Section, Sheffield Area Health Authority, UK

    B. Zaman

Authors
  1. M. S. J. Hashmi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. B. Zaman
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, Manchester, UK

    B. J. Davies (Professor of Manufacturing Technology) (Professor of Manufacturing Technology)

Copyright information

© 1982 Macmillan Publishers Limited

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Hashmi, M.S.J., Zaman, B. (1982). Effect of Noise on Human Psychology and Performance: A Critical Review. In: Davies, B.J. (eds) Proceedings of the Twenty-second International Machine Tool Design and Research Conference. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-06281-2_2

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-06281-2_2

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-349-06283-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-349-06281-2

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation