Lesson 25 Non-auditory effects of noise
May people in industry and the Services, who have practical experience of noise, regard any investig
ation of this question as a waste of time; they are not prepared even to admit the possibility that
noise affects people. On the other hand, those who dislike noise will sometimes use most inadequate
evidence to support their pleas for a quieter society. This is a pity, because noise abatement reall
y is a good cause, and it is likely to be discredited if it gets to be associated with had science.
One allegation often made is that noise produces mental illness. A recent article in a weekly newspa
per, for instance, was headed with a striking illustration of a lady in a state of considerable dist
ress, with the caption 'She was yet another victim, reduced to a screaming wreck'. On turning eagerl
y to the text, one learns that the lady was a typist who found the sound of office typewriters worri
ed her more and more until eventually she had to go into a mental hospital. Now the snag in this sor
t of anecdote is of course that one merely a symptom? Another patient might equally well complain th
at her neighbours were combining to slander her and persecute her, and yet one might be cautious abo
ut believing this statement.
What is needed in case of noise is a study of large numbers of people living under noisy conditions,
to discover whether they are mentally ill more often than other people are. Some time ago the Unite
d States Navy, for instance, examined a very large number of men working on aircraft carriers: the s
tudy was known as Project Anehin. It can be unpleasant to live even several miles from an aerodrome;
if you think what it must be like to share the deck of a ship with several squadrons of jet aircraf
t, you will realize that a modern navy is a good place to study noise. But neither psychiatric inter
views nor objective tests were able to show any effects upon these American sailors. This result mer
ely confirms earlier American and British studies: if there is any effect of noise upon mental healt
h, it must be so small that present methods of psychiatric diagnosis cannot find it. That does not p
rove that it does exist: but it does mean that noise is less dangerous than, say, being brought up i
n an orphanage -- which really is mental health hazard.