世界最恐怖聲音… 嘔吐

【聯合報／編譯張佑生／綜合報導】 2007.01.25 02:57 am

嬰兒啼哭、吐痰、手指甲刮黑板，哪個聲音最恐怖？歷時一年，全球一百一十萬人上網票選最恐怖的聲音結果廿三日揭曉，冠軍是某人嘔吐的聲音。麥克風回授、群嬰齊哭的聲音緊追在後。 英國史福大學音響工程教授考克斯彙整三十四種聲音，在網站上徵求意見（網址：www.sound101.org）。網友可以試聽牙醫鑽牙、打鼾、咳嗽帶痰等令人不悅的聲音，然後評比出最恐怖的聲音。 用手指甲刮黑板的聲音名列第十六，還比不上貓的嗥叫和手機答鈴聲（並列第十二）；許多人難以忍受的鼾聲，居然「只」列在第二十六名。 考克斯表示，人類對於某些聲音的厭惡反映出文化、年齡與性別的影響及差異。嘔吐排名第一，反映出石器時代老祖宗對生存遭到威脅的直覺反應。族裡有人嘔吐代表吃了不潔的食物，其他人也都有生病的危險。手指甲刮黑板的聲音有點像是猿猴尖叫示警，也是老祖宗很介意的聲音。 十歲以下、以及四十到五十歲的年齡層，將牙醫鑽牙列為最恐怖的聲音。 【2007/01/25 聯合報】

Sound of vomiting tops poll

By Roger Highfield, Science Editor

Last Updated: 2:30am GMT 26/01/2007

Hear the sounds For some, it is the sound of a crying baby. For others, it is spitting or the scrape of fingernails on a blackboard. But today, the sound of someone throwing up is officially declared the world's most horrible sound. advertisement The worst sound was identified after more than one million votes were cast worldwide in a mass online science experiment called the BadVibes project. The quest to find the world's least favourite sound was launched a year ago by Prof Trevor Cox of the University of Salford to help shed light on how Stone Age sonic likes and dislikes shaped modern sound preferences, along with modern cultural influences. International visitors to the BadVibes website listened to irritating sounds such as a dentist's drill, snores, flatulent outbursts, rows and phlegmy coughs or low flying aircraft before rating them in terms of their unpleasantness. A pioneering study conducted in the 1980s found the worst sound was a garden tool scraped across slate. But although the similar-sounding fingernails scraping down a blackboard is said to be the worst sound by many people, the actual recording of this sound only came 16th out of 34 sounds auditioned. Microphone feedback came a close second in the 'horribleness ranking', with many babies crying coming joint third. But vomiting came top, echoing how it evolved as a survival mechanism among our ancestors long ago: if one of your tribe is being sick, you have probably eaten the same poisoned food and it is in your interests to be sick too. Although this aversion to the sound of vomiting is hard wired into our brains, Prof Cox said that cultural influences are important too, since the sound did not trigger disgust. "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." Other evidence that we perceive sounds differently, depending on where we were brought up, emerged in the survey. "People scored the sound of vomiting differently in different places," he said. "Australia, Rest of Europe and South America rated the sound less horrible than the UK, and North America rated the sound more horrible than the Rest of Europe." For people over 10 years old, the team found the sound of arguments became more horrible as we age and, with respondents over 65, twice as likely to choose a higher rating. But Australians were only 1.5 times more likely to rate this more horrible than all other places. "Maybe this is why Australian soap operas are so tame," said Prof Cox. Another insight into awful sounds was that females rated 25 out of the 34 sounds more horrible than males. However, baby cries were one of the few sounds men found worse. "This may be because women play a role in protecting both themselves and their offspring from attack," he said. "It could be that females have become habituated to the sound of babies crying." Over 1.1m votes have been statistically analysed by Prof Cox of the University's Acoustic Research Centre since the project was launched, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). "I am driven by a scientific curiosity about why people shudder at certain sounds and not others," he said. Prof Cox hopes that ultimately the project will help the acoustics industry to make the world a better-sounding and less stressful place. Prof Cox, who is now planning a similar experiment to rate the most pleasant sound in the world, is hoping to use the results of the BadVibes project to help inform industry about how to engineer sounds which are nicer. "This research has been fascinating in gaining an insight into why people are repulsed by certain sounds – and how this differs by gender, age and nationality. This is so important because noise significantly affects our quality of life." This is the British top ten, hot of the press: 1 Vomiting 2 Microphone feedback 3 Multiple babies 4 Scrape/squeak (like train wheels) 5 Baby Cry 6 Squeak (sounds like a seesaw) 7 Bad violin playing 8 Whoopee cushion 9 Soap opera argument 10 Mains hum

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/01/24/nsounds24.xml