Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Vote for the most annoying sound!

This is a very interesting scientific experiment designed to find out which noise people find most horrible. To be honest I've heard much nastier ones, but some of these will do as well: just put the sound at maximum when you listen to them... The site has also some interesting facts about sounds and what makes for a bad sound and the like. This BadVibes project (a note about it appeared in the Science edition of 25th November) is part of the Acoustics Audio and Video Department at University of Salford, UK. Although I've never heard of them before, apparently they got the maximum grade in the last RAE evaluation in UK, hence they are a centre of excellence. Here's the stated goal of the BadVibes project:


Fingernails scraping down a blackboard... the scream of a baby... your neighbour’s dog barking: what is the worst sound in the world? This is what a new website from Salford University is trying to find out. The aim of the website is to increase awareness of sound psychology, by examining what makes a sound unpleasant to hear. Your votes on the site will also give us an insight into what is the worst sound in the world, and maybe why it is the worst sound. The format of the website is similar to other voting websites (like amihotor not), so click the link, audition some sounds, and let us know how horrible they are; you might even what to download one of our horrible ringtones.

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