Effects caused by sounds at low frequencies

A central tenet of the Soundscape concept is that humans immersed in sonic environments are as “new experts” reliable communicators, whose reports and descriptions of sound and its effects must be taken seriously. As a first step, different experiments focusing on wind turbines coupled with detailed questionnaires were carried out to study the link between specific characteristics of wind turbine noises and annoyance reactions. It seems as if this will enable to determine the benefit of the Soundscape approach for investigated low frequency noise phenomena. The challenge of validating and resolving widespread and growing reports of health, physiological and behavioral effects apparently from new environmental infrasound can be met through coupling soundscape with parallel scientific techniques not limited to acoustic measurements. The soundscape concept has an incipient role to connect and approach the resolution of this complex issue. Such an augmented soundscape approach centering on the sensitivity of ...