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The top 10 most annoying sounds
Move over nails on a chalkboard, there’s a new most-unpleasant sound in town.
Fri, Oct 19 2012 at 10:18 AM
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Photo: Seanika/Shutterstock
A rattle in the dashboard, a fork scraping a plate, the squeak of Styrofoam – these are the sounds of our undoing. Why do they so annoy?
A team of neuroscientists set out to answer questions about the matter by conducting a study of human responses to unpleasant sounds. Using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure the brain’s responses to a set of 74 sounds, they were able to develop a model of how the brain processes the noises that annoy.
The conclusion? “The stimulus is first processed to a high level in the auditory cortex (STG), which portends the assignment of valence in the amygdala. The amygdala, in turn, modulates the auditory cortex in accordance with the valence of sounds.”
The stuff of excitement for neuroscientists. But for the rest of us, in the process of mapping out "the how," they also ended up with a list of "the what."
Although the unfortunate sound of nails being dragged along a chalkboard has long held the dishonorable distinction of Worst Sound in the World, the study found two other sounds even more intolerable. Here's the breakdown (with sound files for the top five, click if you dare):
10. An electric drill
9. A crying baby
8. Squealing brakes on a bicycle
7. A disc grinder
6. A female scream
Of interest was the finding that along with activity seen in the auditory cortex (the part of the brain that processes sounds), there was also activity in the amygdala (the part of the brain that produces emotions). The MRIs revealed that the amygdala communicated with signals coming from the auditory cortex, increasing the degree of unpleasantness conveyed by the most annoying sounds.
“It appears there is something very primitive kicking in,” says Sukhbinder Kumar, the study’s lead author. “Although there’s still much debate as to why our ears are most sensitive in this range, it does include sounds of screams which we find intrinsically unpleasant.”
Which would make sense, given our instinct for safety and survival and such. According to Smithsonian.com, some theories have suggested that we have an innate sensitivity to the “alarm calls” that annoying sounds might signify. Yet recent research may discount that theory and replace it with a more physiological one: The actual shape of the human ear amplifies some frequencies to a degree that they actually cause physical pain, and thus, the Pavlov’s dogs that we are, we begin to automatically consider them to be unpleasant by association.
Whatever the case may be, there is little debate about the rankle factor of the sounds determined most unpleasant. But how about nice noises? The researchers found that the sounds of flowing water, thunder, and a baby laughing were the least unpleasant, with the sound of applause being the number one pleasant sound.
The paper was published in The Journal of Neuroscience.
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None of these are particularly annoying because you rarely hear them, few of my person most annoying sounds are
Alarm Clock
Muffled music/tv through the wall from neighbours
People chewing with their mouth open
People breathing loudly
Sound of kissing
And my personal top most annoying sound on the planet is my flatmates snores, Some what like chainsaw on concrete.
very good publish, i certainly love this website, carry on it
ummm. what about smoke alarms that repeatedly beep for no reason. I'm noticing that a lot these days and families just go on like nothings happening. i.e. my parents, my neighbors 2 houses down that i can hear when i leave to go anywhere, oh and this 60 yr. old lady i met in home depot that said hers has been like that for over 10 years. what the?
For me, nothing is worse than the sound of Kit Kats being crunched in their recent commercials. I will never buy a Kit Kat again.
When I hear that voice say"this is how we did it(California)where I came from".Then you should consider moving back there and keep doing it.
How about the guy that has a car radio/stereo so loud it makes your whole car vibrate
That reeeaally annoying woman who commentates AOL news videos...
An alarm clock
People chewing food.
How about a fart in the bathtub?
Obamas voice ...
Did anyone else immediately think of Dumb & Dumber when they saw this headline? "Wanna hear the most annoying sound in the world? Haha.
A woman's voice is right up there!
Certainly one of top ten should be the multitude of women (mostly younger) with high, nasal, loud voices. It's becoming an epidemic. The noise they make is much like all these top ten items rolled into one. High, nasal, loud is usually combined with lots of intelligent comments beginning with "awwwwsome", or "amaaaaaaaaaaaazing", or "reeeeeeally?", or "like ..." Really aggravating. Hurts the ears. Big time!
Nothing with balloons!? There are some sounds that I can feel as an unpleasant shock in my teeth. The top 3 don't make it.
No legitimate list in point would fail to include leaf-blowers, Roseanne Barr's voice, or that grating screech that precedes a test of the Emergency Broadcast Network. The Barney Song merits honorable mention.
Car alarms: pure noise pollution. They are double offenders. First there is the sound of them being audibly activated by a HORN beeping or other annoying chirp; and then we have the sound of them going off by the owner accidentally setting it off, or worse the alarm falsely going off when the owner is nowhere to be found.
A favorite sound is a cat's purr. Soooo relaxing. Any high pitched squealing noise such as bad brakes is disturbing.
Though the squealing brakes may be so disturbing because I am thinking $$$ it is gonna cost to fix them. LOL
Chewing gum/food with mouth open and sliding a fork along your teeth. #1
my dogs hate the sound of a baby crying lol they even bark when they hear it through the tv
Even though I love my coffee, I hate the sound of my burr coffee bean grinder.
Personally, I'd add the roar and whine of motorcyle engines that shatter the tranquility of my Oregon mountain home.These things have go to to be violating noise ordinances.