Category: Posts

Emotional perceptions associated with sound environments

tgraven/ / Emotion, Hearing, Posts

People pay more attention to sounds when vision is absent than when it is present. Typically identifying individual sounds of people and objects; activities and scenes; locations and distances. They listen more to sounds for pleasure. For example, to trees whistling, cracking, and hissing in the winter; echoes in narrow places; constantly varying soft sounds; birds singing and the sea. (See our blog for Sensory mismatch, Decay and maintenance of sensory memories, and Using the senses when vision and hearing are impaired). And they describe more emotional perceptions too.

I have invited Professor Christina Eviutami Mediastika, School of Creative Industry, Universitas Ciputra to write this blog post on the emotional perceptions people who are visually impaired and fully sighted describe in soundscapes and soundwalks. Christina E. Mediastika has conducted and published a series of studies on emotional perceptions in parks, on pavements, and inside shopping centres in Surabaya and Yogyakarta, Indonesia. And one study in cinemas.

According to United Nations Development Programme data from 2017, Indonesia has the second largest population of people who are visually impaired (after India), with 1.5% of its population having a visual impairment. The pavements are narrow, damaged, contoured or uneven, and obstructed; the parks are most often located next to major streets, even within roundabouts. And the streets are noisy, polluted, hazardous, and unpleasant. The shopping malls are busy housing a wide variety of offices, and clinics as well as retail.

In our studies, people with visual impairments were encouraged to explore these public facilities and data about their emotional perceptions of each surrounding sound environment was collected. Our studies were based on the ISO 2014 and 2018 Acoustics – Soundscape.

People who are visually impaired describe more emotional perceptions of soundscapes than the fully sighted, especially when outdoors. For example, those with a visual impairment used 56 words and the fully sighted 32 words in urban parks; with “eventfulness” and “pleasantness”, respectively, as the most important emotional perceptions. This finding indicates that engagement with the sonic environment is higher for people who are visually impaired than for those who are fully sighted.

 

More specifically, for people who are visually impaired the most important aspect is how much data the outdoor sound environment provides, which impacts both their ability to navigate and their feeling of being safe (related to “eventfulness”). In contrast, for the fully sighted the most critical aspect is whether the sonic environment makes them feel comfortable (related to “pleasantness”).

Furthermore, people who are visually impaired associate more words to each perceived emotion than the fully sighted. On pavements, for example, “pleasantness” is the most important emotional perception for the fully sighted and “pleasantness-direction-safety” for those with a visual impairment. The fully sighted associate five words to “pleasantness” – comfort, fun, safe, easy, and clear route. And those with a visual impairment three more to “pleasantness-direction-safety” – clear direction, know the location, and soothing: they find pleasantness when they believe in their direction and feel safe.

Regarding indoor sound environments. Both groups perceive “pleasantness” as their dominant emotion inside shopping malls, using words like happy, comfortable, luxurious, and modern.

Moreover, when people who are visually impaired watch movies with a fully sighted narrator guide, their three most significant emotional perceptions are pleasure, storyline, and sound dynamic. Pleasure is associated with comfort, clear sound, and interest in the story. Storyline dimension is the extent to which the storyline was understood. Sound dynamic is connected to intensity and quality of the soundtrack.

There is a misconception that people who are visually impaired have more sensitive hearing than sighted individuals. Both groups have equally sensitive hearing. However, people who are visually impaired rely on sound for many aspects of their daily lives because they are forced to do so, which trains their hearing to be used to its fullest potential. This includes being aware of their surroundings, understanding the direction, recognising safety or danger, and experiencing enjoyment using their surrounding sounds.

See our blog for Activities; especially 46-48.

Some suggestions for further listening, reading, and watching:

Emotional responses to music

From Perception to Pleasure

How the sound in your home affects your mood

Soundspace: A Manifesto

The Psychology of Sound and Emotions

Urban noise: Why cities need to turn down the volume

How anxious individuals perceive odours

tgraven/ / Anxiety, Emotion, Multisensory, Odour, Posts, Smell

The brain processes sensory information through a network of crossmodal correspondences. And, it integrates multiple sensations too. (See our blog for the scientific approach, the crossmodal correspondences between the senses, Crossmodal brain plasticity and empowering of sensory abilities, and Multisensory processing.) But what it actually perceives and later processes is affected by emotions. Which in turn affects the emotions, for example, the feeling of anxiety.

This time Michal Pieniak, Institute of Psychology, University of Wroclaw, and Professor Thomas Hummel, Smell & Taste Clinic, Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Universitätsklinik Dresden, demonstrate how anxiety affects the sense of smell. In his research, Michal Pieniak focuses on connections between olfaction and both cognitive and emotional functioning, and Professor Thomas Hummel on the diagnostics and treatment of olfactory / gustatory loss, the mechanisms involved in irritation of the upper airways, the olfaction in neurodegenerative disorders, and the interactions between the olfactory, trigeminal, and gustatory systems. Between them, they have more than 800 scientific publications. And have received several scholarships and awards (e.g., the 32nd edition of the START program, Foundation of Polish Science, and the European Chemoreception Research Organization (ECRO) for “Excellence in Chemosensory Research”).

The sense of smell helps humans detect dangers in their environment. For example, the smell of smoke or natural gas warns us about potential threats to our safety. If someone can’t smell these odors, they might have more accidents or injuries at home. This is a common problem for people who have lost their sense of smell1. Therefore, being able to accurately detect odors is crucial for our safety and health.

People who experience anxiety, such as generalized anxiety, tend to focus more on things that might be threatening2. This attention to threats can apply to many types of dangers, but sometimes it is more specific. For example, people with social anxiety pay extra attention to faces showing negative emotions3. However, it is not well understood how anxious people perceive smells and if their attention to threats extends from visual objects to odors.

Recently, we teamed up with a research group from Macquarie University in Sydney, led by Prof. Mem Mahmut, to investigate this question. We tested 127 university students who reported their levels of social and generalized anxiety symptoms. They participated in tasks measuring their sense of smell accuracy and perception of odors. Some odors were general, like rose, turpentine, and motor oil, while others were socially relevant, like perfumes, artificial flatulence, and unpleasant body odor. We found that students with higher levels of generalized anxiety were better at detecting subtle differences in intensity of general odors than those with lower anxiety levels.

Increased symptoms of social anxiety > Socially relevant odors perceived as more threatening > Improved ability to detect subtle differences in odor concentration
Figure 1: How anxious individuals perceive odours (Pieniak & Hummel)

Similarly, students with social anxiety were better at sorting socially relevant odors according to their intensity, what was related to the perceived threat of these odors. This suggests that socially anxious individuals see socially related odors as more threatening, which helps them notice subtle differences in odor concentration.

Since our study was correlational, we cannot say for sure whether anxiety causes heightened smell sensitivity or if heightened smell sensitivity leads to anxiety. Additional research, including neuroimaging studies, will help us better understand the relationship between smell and anxiety disorders.

Considering previous findings and results of our study we can conclude that:

– Our sense of smell is essential for detecting environmental dangers and maintaining safety.

– Anxiety can affect how people perceive and respond to odors, with those experiencing anxiety perceiving odors as more threatening and being more sensitive to certain smells4.

See our blog for Activities; especially 43-45.

Some suggestions for further listening, reading, and watching:

Anxiety and Sensory Processing Disorder – Which Comes first?

How Anxiety Affects the Mind and Body

How anxiety warps your perception

Sensory Anxiety: Not Your Ordinary Anxiety

Sensory Problems Caused by Anxiety

What the nose knows

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1Santos, D. V., Reiter, E. R., DiNardo, L. J., & Costanzo, R. M. (2004). Hazardous Events Associated With Impaired Olfactory Function. Archives of Otolaryngol-Head & Neck Surgery, 130(3), 317-319. DOI: 10.1001/archotol.130.3.317

2Mogg, K., & Bradley, B. P. (2005). Attentional Bias in Generalized Anxiety Disorder Versus Depressive Disorder. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 29(1), 29-45. DOI: 10.1007/s10608-005-1646-y

3Lee, H.-J., & Telch, M. J. (2008) Attentional biases in social anxiety: An investigation using the inattentional blindness paradigm. Behaviour Research and Therapy. 46(7), 819-835. DOI:  10.1016/j.brat.2008.04.001

4This research was funded by the National Science Centre in Poland (grant 2022/45/HS6/00651).