Research on the Effects of Soundscapes on Human Psychological Health in an Old Community of a Cold Region

Peng Cui, Tingting Li, Zhengwei Xia and Chunyu Dai
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Peng Cui: School of Landscape Architecture, Northeast Forestry University, Harbin 150040, China
Tingting Li: School of Landscape Architecture, Northeast Forestry University, Harbin 150040, China
Zhengwei Xia: School of Architecture, Soochow University, Suzhou 215123, China
Chunyu Dai: School of Landscape Architecture, Northeast Forestry University, Harbin 150040, China

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 12, 1-16

Abstract: The acoustic environment of residential areas is critical to the health of the residents. To reveal the impact of the acoustic environment on people’s mental health and create a satisfactory acoustic setting, this study took a typical old residential area in Harbin as an example, conducted a field measurement and questionnaire survey on it, and took typical acoustic sources as the research object for human body index measurement. The relationship between heart rate (HR), skin conductivity level (SCL), physiological indicators, semantic differences (SD), and psychological indicators was studied. The sound distribution in the old community was obtained, determining that gender, age, and education level are significant factors producing different sound source evaluations. Music can alleviate residents’ psychological depression, while traffic sounds and residents’ psychological state can affect the satisfaction evaluation of the sound environment. There is a significant correlation between the physiological and psychological changes produced by different sounds. Pleasant sounds increase a person’s HR and decrease skin conductivity. The subjects’ HR increased 3.24 times per minute on average, and SCL decreased 1.65 times per minute on average in relation to hearing various sound sources. The SD evaluation showed that lively, pleasant, and attractive birdsongs and music produced the greatest HR and SCL changes, and that the sound barrier works best when placed 8 m and 18 m from the road.

Keywords: soundscape; physical health; acoustic comfort; sound preference; old community (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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