Have you ever wondered why the sound of birds chirping in the mornings is so soothing? A new study found that people can reduce stress and anxiety by listening to bird noises. German researchers compared the effects of wild bird singing with urban traffic noise on the subjects’ cognitive and emotional functioning.
According to a study published in the Nature portfolio magazine Scientific Reports, another goal was to evaluate the influence of lower vs. higher soundscape variety by altering the quantity of various common traffic noises or different bird species’ songs within the two soundscapes.
In a six-minute online experiment, 295 participants were randomly assigned to one of four treatments—traffic noise low, traffic noise high, birdsong low, and birdsong high diversity soundscapes. The participants also completed digit-span and dual n-back activities before and after the exposure, as well as surveys for sadness, anxiety, and paranoia.
According to Newsweek, as the world quickly becomes more urbanised, so does the environment in which people live. By 2050, it is anticipated that over 70% of the world’s population will reside in cities, with certain areas, like Europe, already exceeding this figure.
Given that urbanisation has been linked to worse mental health outcomes, understanding how the urban environment affects our wellbeing is crucial. However, traditional psychological research usually undervalue the impact of environmental influences on human wellbeing and cognition.
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