Lise Meitner Group for Environmental Neuroscience, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Lentzeallee 94, 14195, Berlin, Germany.
Neuronal Plasticity Working Group, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Martinistr. 52, 20246, Hamburg, Germany.
Sci Rep. 2022 Oct 13;12(1):16414. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-20841-0.
The present study investigated the effect of urban (traffic noise) vs. natural (birdsongs) soundscapes on mood, state paranoia, and cognitive performance, hypothesizing that birdsongs lead to significant improvements in these outcomes. An additional goal was to explore the differential impact of lower vs. higher diversity of the soundscapes by manipulating the number of different typical traffic sounds or songs of different bird species within the respective soundscapes. In a randomized online experiment, N = 295 participants were exposed to one out of four conditions for 6 min: traffic noise low, traffic noise high, birdsong low, and birdsong high diversity soundscapes. Before and after the exposure, participants performed a digit-span and dual n-back task, and filled out depression, anxiety, and paranoia questionnaires. The traffic noise soundscapes were associated with a significant increase in depression (small effect size in low, medium effect size in high diversity condition). Concerning the birdsong conditions, depression exclusively decreased after exposure to the high diversity soundscape (small effect size). Anxiety and paranoia significantly decreased in both birdsong conditions (medium effect sizes). For cognition, no effects were observed. In sum, the present study suggests that listening to birdsongs regardless of diversity improves anxiety, while traffic noise, also regardless of diversity, is related to higher depressiveness. Moreover, for the first time, beneficial, medium-sized effects of birdsong soundscapes were demonstrated, reducing paranoia. Overall, the results bear interesting implications for further research, such as actively manipulating soundscapes in different environments or settings (e.g., psychiatric wards) and testing their effect on subclinical or even clinical manifestations of anxiety and paranoia.
本研究旨在探讨城市（交通噪音）与自然（鸟鸣声）声景对情绪、状态妄想和认知表现的影响，假设鸟鸣声会显著改善这些结果。另一个目标是通过操纵不同典型交通声音的数量或不同鸟鸣声的数量来探索声景多样性的差异影响。在一项随机在线实验中，N=295 名参与者在 6 分钟内暴露于以下四种条件之一：交通噪音低、交通噪音高、鸟鸣声低和鸟鸣声高多样性声景。在暴露前后，参与者执行数字跨度和双重 n 回任务，并填写抑郁、焦虑和妄想问卷。交通噪音声景与抑郁显著增加相关（低多样性条件下的小效应量，高多样性条件下的中效应量）。关于鸟鸣声条件，仅在高多样性声景暴露后，抑郁明显降低（小效应量）。焦虑和妄想在两种鸟鸣声条件下均显著降低（中效应量）。对于认知，没有观察到效果。总之，本研究表明，无论多样性如何，聆听鸟鸣声都可以改善焦虑，而交通噪音无论多样性如何，都会导致更高的抑郁。此外，这是首次证明鸟鸣声景具有有益的、中等大小的效果，可以减少妄想。总体而言，这些结果为进一步的研究提供了有趣的启示，例如在不同的环境或环境中主动操纵声景（例如，精神病病房）并测试它们对焦虑和妄想的亚临床甚至临床症状的影响。
