Research on the Effects of Soundscapes on Human Psychological Health in an Old Community of a Cold Region

Abstract

The acoustic environment of residential areas is critical to the health of the residents. To reveal the impact of the acoustic environment on people’s mental health and create a satisfactory acoustic setting, this study took a typical old residential area in Harbin as an example, conducted a field measurement and questionnaire survey on it, and took typical acoustic sources as the research object for human body index measurement. The relationship between heart rate (HR), skin conductivity level (SCL), physiological indicators, semantic differences (SD), and psychological indicators was studied. The sound distribution in the old community was obtained, determining that gender, age, and education level are significant factors producing different sound source evaluations. Music can alleviate residents’ psychological depression, while traffic sounds and residents’ psychological state can affect the satisfaction evaluation of the sound environment. There is a significant correlation between the physiological and psychological changes produced by different sounds. Pleasant sounds increase a person’s HR and decrease skin conductivity. The subjects’ HR increased 3.24 times per minute on average, and SCL decreased 1.65 times per minute on average in relation to hearing various sound sources. The SD evaluation showed that lively, pleasant, and attractive birdsongs and music produced the greatest HR and SCL changes, and that the sound barrier works best when placed 8 m and 18 m from the road.