Physiological responses to noise and to the type of activity under field conditions.

Airport area residents were monitored in their private homes for ECG, skin conductance, and respiration during testing sessions of about 1 1/2 hours. All recorded data were analyzed individually. Noise as well as the ongoing activities of the subjects, consisting of mental concentration, scalometric noise assessment, relaxation, and conversation caused significant shifts of the vegetative tonus in most of the subjects. It seems, therefore, that habituation to noise does not develop for this type of environmental noise.