The effect of sound with different frequencies on men and women noise annoyance

Sound is one of the most effective exogenous factors affecting human brain processing mechanisms and audio disturbance, which play a major role in human error and occupational accidents. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of sound frequency on human noise annoyance. This research is an interventional study that was carried out on 60 students of Gonabad University of Medical Sciences in 2017 that 30 were female and 30 were male. Measurements and tests to determine the degree of noise annoyance was performed during exposure to sound at various frequencies of 500, 1000, 2000, 4000 and 8000 Hz. Sound.exe software was used to determine the sound with different frequencies and noise annoyance were determined based on the acoustic questionnaire “Acoustics -- Assessment of noise annoyance by means of social and socio-acoustic surveys” which is available in the ISO / TS 15666 standard. Data analysis was performed using SPSS.
The mean age of males was 21.12 years with a standard deviation of 0.13 and the mean age of females was 19.19 years with a standard deviation of 0.5. According to the results of this study, in female subjects, the maximum degree of noise annoyance is at 4000 Hz, and the frequency of previous and subsequent frequencies of 4000 Hz decreases the degree of noise annoyance. Also, in male subjects, the highest degree of noise annoyance is at 8000 Hz. And from 500 to 8000 Hz, the frequency of noise annoyance increases, respectively. The results of ANOVA test showed that there is a significant relationship between noise annoyances with different frequencies. The results of t - test showed that there is a significant difference between male and female dissonance. According to the results of the study, the highest degree of sound irritation is at 4000 and 8000 Hz. In this study, the gender variable as one of the factors affecting anxiety was studied Because of individual differences in overall sensitivity to sound and sound sensitivity with different frequencies, also because there are other environmental factors that may affect cognitive functions in addition to sound, it is suggested these factors investigate in future studies.
Keywords: noise, frequency noise, annoyance