Improving the Daily Conditions of Life through Acoustics

Document from the year 2018 in the subject Physics - Acoustics, grade: 90.0, course: AP Research, language: English, abstract: This study will attempt to discover the potential correlation between noise pollution and human behavior. Acoustics and noise pollution are certainly intertwined, and if a connection exists between sounds and human behavior, then it can be conjectured that a possible correlation can be created between noise pollution and the latter. What this study intends to focus on is what factor specifically manipulates the correlation between acoustics and human behavior, and in order to explore this issue, a thorough meta-analysis will be conducted. Acoustics plays an integral role in human behavior and health. Not only are there useful applications of acoustics, such as using findings from research to predict Alzheimers Disease or to induce different emotions such as happiness or sadness, but acoustics can also be used to potentially solve one of the most serious problems in the environment: noise pollution. Noise pollution is quickly becoming one of the biggest issues of the 21st century, and this has led to an alarming increase in the population affected a tinnitus, a medical condition that is related to hearing loss. In fact, "it has been estimated that 94 percent of the people in the United States suffer from some degree of tinnitus." Furthermore, noise pollution greatly affects worker productivity and their health. In order to solve these problems and better society, many different steps have been taken to try and reduce the amount of noise pollution. Some include creating more productive office designs in order to counteract this problem or allowing ANC (active noise control) devices to be more accessible to the public. One aspect of acoustics that this study focuses on is psychoacoustics and understanding how acoustical properties of multiple environments affect behavior.