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Screeech! The sound of nails on a chalkboard are in the top 5 worst sounds, according to a new study.
Which sounds drive our ears absolutely bonkers?
A British study rated the screechy scrape of a sharp knife along the surface of a ridged metal bottle as the most unpleasant sound. It earned the top spot in a recent ranking of 75 different sounds.
A steel fork scraping along a glass finished a close second among the nastiest noises heard by 50 college students during the research. And the annoying squeal of chalk on a blackboard was the third most awful sound in this small experiment , in which listeners rated each sound on a nine-point scale from 0 for least unpleasant to 9 for most unpleasant.
The study volunteers all had good hearing and used headphones to listen to a variety of natural and man-made sound recordings, which ranged from a cat screaming and a clarinet squeaking to a fire alarm blaring and an engine revving.
Interestingly, the always cringe-inducing sound of fingernails on a blackboard came in fifth on the rankings -- behind a ruler on a bottle but ahead of a woman's scream.
"It was a bit surprising that a female scream and a baby's cry were rated lower than the scratchy sounds, such as a knife on a bottle," says study author Sukhbinder Kumar, Ph.D., a neuroscientist at Newcastle University Medical School in the U.K.
He says the reason the scratchy sounds may have scored higher may have to do with the acoustic structure of sounds that result from scraping actions. Scratchy noises, like knife on glass, may be the most unpleasant because more of the sound's energy is concentrated in the frequency band of 2000 to 5000 Hz, where our ears are most sensitive. (Screams also have energy in the same frequency band, but its concentration is less.)
In a new study published in The Journal of Neuroscience, Kumar and his colleagues built upon this earlier research to understand the brain mechanism behind why people perceive certain sounds to be so unpleasant.
They asked 13 healthy adults to listen to the same sounds as they previously tested while in a functional MRI machine. Volunteers rated the sounds on a scale from 1 (least unpleasant) to 5 (most unpleasant).
This time, study participants rated chalk on a blackboard at the worst sound while they found bubbling water to be the most soothing. Kumar suspects that the noisy and confining quarters of the MRI machine and the smaller number of participants may have contributed to the slight differences in results between this research and the earlier study.
The brain scans allowed the scientists to see the interaction between the sensory (auditory) part of the brain, involved in hearing, and the emotional part of the brain (the amygdala) in response to the various noises.
What they found was that the emotional part of the brain modulates, or changes, the activity of the sensory part of the brain based on the emotional value of the sound. Kumar says that if a sound is "highly unpleasant," which may have the potential to cause harm, the emotional part of the brain heightens up the response of the sensory cortex, which provokes a negative reaction to its perceived unpleasantness.
Kumar suggests that these new findings may help shed light on the brain's reaction to disorders such as migraine and tinnitus (ringing in the ears), in which people are super sensitive to the unpleasant aspects of sound.
Want to test your reaction to some of the sounds used in both studies? Listen to some of the sounds here:
The 10 worst sounds based on both studies were:
6. Female scream
7. Angle grinder tool used on a hollow metal pipe
8. Bicycle breaks squealing
9. Baby crying
10. Electric drill running at a range of speeds
The 4 least unpleasant sounds were:
1. Applause
3. Thunder
4. Water flowing
The baby and parents from the recent laughing-baby Internet video sensation, Marcus, Amanda and Micah McArthur, visit the TODAY studio.
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Leave a Comment:
Basketball players' shoes squeaking on the court. Squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak ............
The only thing I can think of worse than that is the sound of Michele Bachmann... O B A M A Care... One Term President... Sharia Law... ...born in Kenya... if there is anything worse than that please let me know.
Mitt. Romney.
Why do some trolls have to try and turn everything into a political discussion. Can you two please go back to your respective mom's basements and turn off the computers until you have something intelligent to add to the discussion.
TROLLS... hardly. Why don't you get a life and don't get upset about what some body else finds ANNOYING!... Isn't that what the story is about... so what do YOU have to add to the discussion that is so intelligent?
Hilary Clinton making a speech is at the top of my list. She needs to go away.
Styrofoam on glass.... enough said.
How about styrofoam on old dry painted sheetrock.
Rubbing two pieces of styrafoam against each other. That will bring anyone to their knees.
Agreed, styrofoam wins. I'm surprised it's not on the top of the list. I can listen to knife on bottle all day long.
I thought the styrofoam sound must be something that didn't bother other people, according to this list. Nice to see I'm not completely alone on this. I could tolerate all the other sounds on this list. Two pieces of styrofoam rubbing together will send me fleeing from a room.
Balloons. The latex of balloons squeaking together. Styrofoam, yes. And any repetative noise. Noise-toys around my home quickly find their batteries or wiring defective.
Nails on the blackboard gives me a tingling shiver down my spine for some reason. That sound is just unbelievably grating to me. Even just the thought of it makes me cringe a little.
Nagging wife. This sound can go on for years.
Michael Jackson "music". Definitely in the Top 10.
Air brakes on a train, semi truck or bus.
10. Lip-smacking at the dinner table
9. The test of the Emergency Broadcast System
8. Bugs flying close or into your ear
7. "Honey, come see what I bought..."
6. Bagpipes played badly
5. Cats in heat
4. The sound of the gas pump emptying your wallet
3. Wet slap-slap-slapping sounds from the showers
2. Crying Baby
1. Mitt Rmoney Lying to America
excuse me but it is the wrong candidate you accuse of lying.
No it's not, and they ALL lie through their artificially whitened teeth. It's just that when Mitt does it the hairs on my neck stand on end. When Obama does it, it just rolls off his tongue like brown pearls.
Great list Indigo.
Bagpipes are awful and made ten times worse by Americans desperate attempts to contrive some sort of heritage from having them played on special occasions when they idiotically also wear kilts.
Lip smacking at the table is up there with the sound of someone chewing gum or snapping their gum. Those are the types of sounds that are awful to hear and made so much worse by the frustration you feel in not being able to understand how they can't seem to grasp how rude they are being.
Someone chewing with their mouth open.....that is the worst! Then the crumpling of a plastic bag.
Does this study have military applications, i wonder? They were rather unimaginative in their test sounds i think. Just to think of the sound of a shovel going through sand just gives me chills. And a dog licking himself is unbearable.
dentist drill beats all worst sounds as far as I am concerned
mother-in-laws
That would be "Mothers-In-Law" in English.
The 10 most annoying sounds:
10. Rebecca Black/Justin Beiber/Nicki Minaj/Lady Gaga/Lil Wayne/Any Disney Child Actor's music
9. Anything Donald Trump says
8. Styrofoam rubbing against anything
7. The swish of thigh-fat in the Summer heat/Anything Rosie O'Donnell says
6. The wheezing of Kanye West's nostrils
5. Any "Italian sounding word" ever uttered by a Starbuck's employee
4. Ryan Seacrest's heartbeat
3. The frontal lobe of Kim Kardashian's brain
2. The sound of a slice of bologna being thrown hard onto a stainless steel counter
1. Anything Mitt Romney says while explaining how he identifies with the middle class
How about any cast member of The View, or Obama sans teleprompter? Without his time-tested communicaton connection, Barry O. resorts to making slurpy, gurgly noises, sort of like John Hurt in The Elephant Man. Oh! That's why we didn't hear him clearly say act of terrorism when it came to the attack in the Benghazi and the torture/murder of Chris Stephens. It only sounded like he said something silly about a video . . .
The first President to use a teleprompter was John F. Kennedy. They've been used by each and every one since.
But still, somehow, it's a bad thing when the black guy does it.
Hate to bust anyone's bubble, but...
From 0--------->9 is a TEN point scale, not a 9 point scale!
Just sayin...
NevadaJ -
Sounds a little racist to me. BTW, Obama's only half black; hence the cafe' au lait complexion and silver tongue. If memory serves, there's an Irishman in his family's woodpile. Maybe teleprompter use is a "Paddy preference." African Americans who vote for Obama based solely on his race - and you KNOW that happens - A LOT - are only getting 50% of what they're bargaining for.
By and large -- children whining, in the 2-to-10-year old range.
My neighbor in the next cubicle over.
The heavy clack clack clack clack clack on keyboards of some people who type too hard.
I think you hit that same volume when you typed your fifth "clack"...
Dentist water pick. that high pitched squealing makes me want to cry.
Any political ad.
Emily Deshanel's voice should be at the top of the unpleasant list.
She's so smoking hot that if her voice ever started to bother me, I'd just balls-gag her...
Indigo...that was bad. Truly distasteful. Yes, I laughed.
Distasteful? Emily, is that you?
I hate the sound of chip bags. That crinkle sound kills me. Weird.
Thank god it's not only me that hates that sound! Honestly, anyone digging in any bag bugs me but chip bags are the worst. A few years ago Delta gave out these bagged meals as you got on the flight. The bags were this ridiculously loud plastic...it was hell.
Totally off topic, but why is no one spell checking msnbc's articles anymore?
Spell checking? I can't even read through 85% of them. Most read like they're written by teenagers. The comments are usually far more interesting.
Anymore? Was there a point in time when they were?
People who 'pop' their gum. People who eat chips or anything crunchy.
I LOVE the sound of thunder, and the sound of fast-flowing creeks and streams.
I HATE the sound of Michelle Obama's voice; there's just something uniquely irritating about it. I really don't like it when Michelle, et al, put an sh sound before words where it doesn't belong, like strong or strike. It comes out sounding like shtrong and schtrike.. Annoying.
Conversely you should her her when she shings to a slong.
0-9 scale is a ten point scale, not nine point scale.
And 13 people does not an accurate study make.