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24/01/2007
Vomiting is 'worst sound in the world'
The sound of someone being sick is officially the most horrible sound in the world, according to the results of a mass online science experiment.
A million votes were cast by visitors to the BadVibes website - a research project set up by the University of Salford.
Visitors to the site listened to a variety of sounds, including a dentist's drill, fingernails scraping down a blackboard and aircraft flying past, before rating them in them in terms of their unpleasantness.
However, although fingernails scraping down a blackboard is widely said to be the worst sound by many people, researchers at the university found that the sound only come 16th out of 34 sounds auditioned.
Microphone feedback came second in the survey, followed by babies crying.
Professor Trevor Cox of the University's Acoustic Research Centre said that the experiment had been conducted to explore the public's perception of unpleasant sounds and help inform the acoustics industry.
Professor Cox said: "We are pre-programmed to be repulsed by horrible things such as vomiting, as it is fundamental to staying alive to avoid nasty stuff but, interestingly, the voting patterns from the sound did not match expectation for a pure 'disgust' reaction.
"Similarly, the sound of fingernails down a blackboard has been compared to the warning cries of monkeys - again, something that humans might instinctively respond to because of our ancestry. So, we examined whether the voting patterns for the scraping sounds were consistent with an evolved response. But only for the worst scraping sound were the results consistent with the hypothesis of an evolved response."
Professor Cox also discovered that females rated 25 of the 34 sounds more horrible than males. However, baby cries were one of the few sounds that men found worse than females. He said: "This may be because women play a role in protecting both themselves and their offspring from attack. It could be that females have become habituated to the sound of babies crying."
(KMcA)
A million votes were cast by visitors to the BadVibes website - a research project set up by the University of Salford.
Visitors to the site listened to a variety of sounds, including a dentist's drill, fingernails scraping down a blackboard and aircraft flying past, before rating them in them in terms of their unpleasantness.
However, although fingernails scraping down a blackboard is widely said to be the worst sound by many people, researchers at the university found that the sound only come 16th out of 34 sounds auditioned.
Microphone feedback came second in the survey, followed by babies crying.
Professor Trevor Cox of the University's Acoustic Research Centre said that the experiment had been conducted to explore the public's perception of unpleasant sounds and help inform the acoustics industry.
Professor Cox said: "We are pre-programmed to be repulsed by horrible things such as vomiting, as it is fundamental to staying alive to avoid nasty stuff but, interestingly, the voting patterns from the sound did not match expectation for a pure 'disgust' reaction.
"Similarly, the sound of fingernails down a blackboard has been compared to the warning cries of monkeys - again, something that humans might instinctively respond to because of our ancestry. So, we examined whether the voting patterns for the scraping sounds were consistent with an evolved response. But only for the worst scraping sound were the results consistent with the hypothesis of an evolved response."
Professor Cox also discovered that females rated 25 of the 34 sounds more horrible than males. However, baby cries were one of the few sounds that men found worse than females. He said: "This may be because women play a role in protecting both themselves and their offspring from attack. It could be that females have become habituated to the sound of babies crying."
(KMcA)
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