Psychophysical health in relation to the environmental noise perception of younger versus older groups of people in Dhaka City

Abstract

Auditory perception towards environmental noise was tested individually in 510 graduate and undergraduate student participants (18-28 yrs) who were experienced in habitually noisy-living areas. A 15-item questionnaire was developed to measure the auditory perception and the responses were evaluated by 10 teachers of Psychology living and working in Dhaka City. Another 33-item ‘Burns Anxiety Inventory’ questionnaire for the assessment of psychophysical health was used for the same participants. Results showed that increased level of negative perception towards environmental noise maintain a significant linear relation with the degradation of psychophysical health (P<0.01). Another study similar to the above one was performed in which age factor was tested as a parameter. The results of the second study on 345 older participants (55-65 yrs) showed a significant improvement of psychophysical health (P<0.05), though the respondents have had negative perception towards environmental noise. The inverse results of these two studies have been interpreted by assuming a threshold function (λ) between the two age groups, where λ represented a psychophysical antibody against the effects of environmental noise perception.

Key words: Psychophysical health; environmental noise perception; psychophysical antibody

DOI: 10.3329/jles.v5i0.7355

J. Life Earth Sci., Vol. 5: 81-84, 2010