Facial EMG responses to noise.

Tension of the forehead increases as a response to unpleasant stimuli. In three experiments EMG activity in corrugator muscle was measured to test this response as an indicator of noise annoyance. In Exp. 1 (n = 24) monotonic sound level-response functions were obtained for four levels of 100- and 1000-Hz tones. In Exp. 2 (n = 20) recordings were made during work with a simple and a difficult task in a group of women and a group of men. Larger responses were obtained during the difficult task, especially during noise exposure. The response was much larger for the women. Exp. 3 (n = 24) showed that the sex difference was unaffected by a correction for differences in maximum level of corrugator response. Rated annoyance was a linear function of log EMG.