What is psychoacoustics and why should we care about it? Paige Hodsman, concept developer for Saint-Gobain Ecophon explains how the psychology of how we perceive sound is essential for our health and wellbeing. She explains how humans react to sound stimulus directly relates to our performance at work for instance. This helps us understand how people respond to their environment and how we can design better spaces.
Did you know that biophilic improvements to a space has a positive impact on our brains through our hearing too? The vast experience of humans have been outside, in fact we are particularly suited to being in a natural environment, in fact neuronal activity is greater when we hear natural sounds.
Paige looks at how our physical world produces responses in our bodies, how the materials used in our environment affect how sound waves behave. When these sound waves enter our ears, what next? The pitch, quality and type of sound makes a difference to our brains. By using research conducted by pscyho-acousticians we can learn how different sounds are processed, what happens inside the ear, how the mechanical sound wave becomes an electrical impulses that then feed through the nervous system and therefore affect our brains.
At 14.10 Paige describes just HOW the sound waves enters our eardrum and how it then is translated into perception. If we soften the environment it is better for our brains. Lots of reflective surfaces, for instance in hospitals, some environments in schools, offices and homes, disorient us, which triggers responses in our brains saying something might be wrong. If you think about it, our early lives on the plains, we were constantly listening out for predators, attacks, thunderstorms, danger, threats, as well as where food is. Anything which is cacophonous triggers that perception of threat, and therefore also triggers our fight or flight mode. So being in a constantly noisy environment keeps our adrenalin levels high and our hormones racing, putting pressure on our nervous system, bodies and overall health.
At 34.38 Paige looks closer at good biophilic acoustics after having discussed the bre office project, which is a case study lead by Oliver Heath on how we can design a better office using human-centric design bringing nature, textures, materials, temperature control and more into an office environment. Essentially how we can bring “home” to the office. (We covered this here if you would like to watch the video - or search ‘bre biophilic office project’ on our ‘podcast’ page on our website www.journalofbiophilicdesign.com or on YouTube). How we can mimic nature in our built environment by bringing the best of an outdoor environment inside.
Did you know that opening a window is one of the best natural sound absorbers? But if you can’t open a window or door how do you recreate that “sound” absorption. You need the right levels of absorption in a space, and companies like Ecophon who produce sound-baffling panels (which we print images and virtual nature windows on) are excellent methods of creating better acoustics environments. Also you can introduce water sounds, bird song, wind in the trees. Paige makes an important point, you also need to think about where the sound is pumped out from. For instance you don’t want water coming from above your head, you want it emanating from a believable height (otherwise you might think you’ve got a leak in the building!), also from a psychological perspective, having a visual to enhance the sound is excellent (so images of what the sound comes from, e.g. a waterfall, or fountain, stream, seascape, etc) or a real water feature is excellent.
Let us know what kinds of acoustic environments work best for you, email us on editor@journalofbiophilicdesign.com or message our Linkedin page, or engage with us on Instagram or FB.
To find out more about Psychoacoustics contact Paige Hodsman at Saint-Gobain Ecophon.
To scroll through our other podcasts, have a look here on our main podcast page.
Credits: with thanks to George Harvey Audio Production for the calming biophilic soundscape that backs all our podcasts.
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