# Noise sensitivity: from systematic review to improving its measurement

Catherine Marquis-Favre, Wolfgang Ellermeier, Karin Zimmer, Eunsung Song, Sanghee Park

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Catherine Marquis-Favre, Wolfgang Ellermeier, Karin Zimmer, Eunsung Song, Sanghee Park. Noise sensitivity: from systematic review to improving its measurement. Internoise, Aug 2025, Nantes, France. hal-05290667

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# Noise sensitivity: from systematic review to improving its measurement

Catherine Marquis-Favre<fnref n="1" />
ENTPE, Ecole Centrale de Lyon, CNRS, LTDS, UMR5513
3 rue Maurice Audin, 69518 Vaulx-en-Velin, France

Wolfgang Ellermeier<fnref n="2" />
Technische Universität Darmstadt
Institut für Psychologie, Alexanderstr. 10, 64283 Darmstadt, Germany

Karin Zimmer<fnref n="3" />
Universität Vechta
Empirische Bildungsforschung, Driverstr. 22, 49377 Vechta, Germany

Eunsung Song<fnref n="4" />
ENTPE, Ecole Centrale de Lyon, CNRS, LTDS, UMR5513
3 rue Maurice Audin, 69518 Vaulx-en-Velin, France

Sang Hee Park<fnref n="5" />
Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology
283, Goyang-daero, Ilsanseo-gu, Goyang-si, Gyeonggi-do, 10223, Republic of Korea

## ABSTRACT

Noise sensitivity is known to be the most influential non-acoustic factor affecting noise annoyance. While there is general consensus within the international research community as to how noise annoyance should be measured, it is not true for noise sensitivity. Either single-item rating scales are used or full-fledged questionnaires. Few of these instruments have been validated across different languages, and some of them have never been psychometrically evaluated. Even though noise sensitivity has been studied for many decades, there is no systematic review of what noise sensitivity is. The present research program started out by conducting a systematic review of the instruments available to measure noise sensitivity. Next, an online survey will be carried out to evaluate and compare existing noise-sensitivity questionnaires on a large sample while considering versions in different languages. Finally, on the basis of both the systematic review and the questionnaire evaluation, a resulting measure of noise sensitivity will be assessed in the laboratory by relating it to both noise annoyance and physiological measurements. The relevance

<footnote n="1">¹ catherine.marquisfavre@entpe.fr</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² ellermeier@psychologie.tu-darmstadt.de</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³ karin.zimmer@uni-vechta.de</footnote>

<footnote n="4">⁴ eunsung song@entpe.fr</footnote>

<footnote n="5">⁵ sangheepark@kict.re.kr</footnote>
of the proposed work is thus to designate a reliable, yet economic method to measure noise sensitivity in future surveys.

# 1. INTRODUCTION

Noise sensitivity refers to internal states (physiological and psychological) of any individual, which increase reactivity to noise in general [1]. Noise sensitivity has shown to be related to some personality traits (e.g., state anxiety) or mental disorders (e.g., depression [2]). But a psychiatric morbidity is not a prerequisite for being noise sensitive [3]. Furthermore, noise sensitivity is not related to hearing acuity [4] or self-reported hearing impairment [5]. Recent functional brain imaging studies have highlighted that noise sensitivity is associated with neuroanatomical changes (e.g., a larger grey matter volume in selected auditory and limbic brain areas), leading noise-sensitive persons to aversively evaluate auditory stimuli [6].

The importance of taking into account noise sensitivity in studies dealing with the impact of environmental noise on health and well-being is an accepted notion in the research community (e.g., [7-8]). For example, noise sensitivity is the most influential non-acoustic factor accounting for some 10 to 26% in annoyance due to environmental noise (e.g., [9]). Various questionnaires exist to measure noise sensitivity in the research literature, such as the Weinstein questionnaire [10] and its shortened versions (e.g., [11]), the LEF scale [12], the NoiSeQ scale [13] and its short version (NoiSeQ-R), or single-item scales (e.g., [14]). They are used in field studies dealing with noise effects on health and well-being (e.g., annoyance due to transportation noises [15]; annoyance due to indoor noise [16]). Including noise sensitivity increases the variance accounted for by annoyance models (e.g., for aircraft noise [9]), and their prediction quality compared to the one of models solely based on $L_{den}$ (e.g., for transportation noises [17]).

There is a consensus within the scientific community on the way of measuring noise annoyance [18]. But there were scarce endeavors to check the psychometric quality (e.g., reliability) of noise sensitivity questionnaires (e.g., [11; 19]), or to translate a given questionnaire into different languages (e.g., [20]). Consequently, there is a need in the scientific community for comparing the various existing instruments with representative samples of the population, and potentially for different languages, to identify a reliable and valid measure of noise sensitivity to better take it into account in effects of noise on health. To that aim, we initiated a research project consisting of three tasks. They are respectively described in the following sections.

# 2. TASK 1: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF THE MEASUREMENT OF NOISE SENSITIVITY

Noise sensitivity has been studied for over 40 years, but there is no systematic review of that research. This may in part be due to the fact that noise sensitivity is investigated in different domains (e.g., the urban environment, the workplace, or the hospital), and over several disciplines (e.g., public health or psychology). A systematic review is proposed in the present project (cf. [21] in this conference), focusing on noise sensitivity and the different instruments to measure it, across different domains of investigation, and across different languages and cultures. The systematic review has been pre-registered on the PROSPERO site [22].

The initial step of the systematic review consisted of a systematic search of published literature as well as unpublished material in the four languages French, German, Korean and English. This included defining search criteria and identifying document sources in the main disciplines. Furthermore, in all four research communities, other sources of information (e.g., experts in the research fields, pertinent research institutions and professional societies) were contacted for relevant material. The second step dealt with screening all search results for pertinence, and provided a corpus of studies for further analyses. The third step consisted of synthesizing the evidence by coding each study to categorize the instruments used to measure it, in terms of the aspects of noise sensitivity studied and the quality of each investigation.
The aim of the narrative synthesis is to provide outcomes which will directly inform Tasks 2 and 3 of this research project: a) a state-of-the-art synthesis of the concept of noise sensitivity and its dimensions, and b) an evidence-and-gap-map highlighting the research evidence already obtained and still-existing research gaps in the main research domains.

### 3. TASK 2: COMPARISON OF QUESTIONNAIRES

Task 2 will compare the existing instruments to measure noise sensitivity as identified in the systematic review with respect to their psychometric quality while including cultural and linguistic aspects. Likely instruments may include, but are not restricted to: the noise sensitivity (WNS) scale [10], the German noise sensitivity (LEF) scale [12], the NoiSeQ questionnaire [13]. An one-item rating scale used in field studies (e.g., [23]) will also be considered.

The noise-sensitivity instruments will be filled out by participants for within-subject comparisons in an online survey. Samples from French, German, and English-speaking populations will assess noise sensitivity on the instruments in the respective language; 300 participants per language will be recruited. The online survey will also assess noise annoyance.

Data analyses will be carried out to assess: a) the psychometric properties of the questionnaires, b) potential cultural/language differences, c) different aspects of noise sensitivity and, d) the relationship between noise sensitivity and noise annoyance for each measure of noise sensitivity.

### 4. TASK 3: PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT OF NOISE SENSITIVITY

On the basis of both the systematic review (Task 1) and the questionnaire comparison (Task 2), the resulting multi-item as well as the one-item measure of noise sensitivity will be tested in laboratory conditions by investigating their respective relationships: a) with short-term annoyance, and b) with physiological correlates. Studies of assessing noise sensitivity by easily accessible physiological indicators have been scarce (e.g., [16]). An exploratory study [24] suggested that skin-conductance responses may serve as an indicator of noise sensitivity, and an investigation [15] demonstrated that the pupil dilation response differentiated pleasant from unpleasant urban soundscapes, suggesting that pupillometry might also be suited to reveal effects of noise sensitivity.

The laboratory study will assess short-term annoyance and physiological indicators of emotional valence in participants exposed to noise. The experimental data will be analyzed to determine the effects of noise sensitivity on both annoyance and the physiological correlates. Thanks to the latter, noise sensitivity may be objectively anchored, and the mechanisms, by which it develops, may be further specified.

### 5. CONCLUSIONS

This research project will provide a) evidence on the quality of existing noise-sensitivity questionnaires thanks to a systematic review, b) an empirical comparison of the previously highlighted questionnaires across languages in terms of their psychometric characteristics, and their potential to predict noise annoyance reactions, and c) evidence on correlates of noise sensitivity captured by means of peripheral physiological measurements. In the end, a reliable and economic method to measure noise sensitivity may be designated. Hopefully that will be beneficial for future work taking individual noise sensitivity into account in predicting noise effects in epidemiological and public health surveys.

### ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work is funded by the Fondation pour l'Audition (grant FPA RD-2022-6). The authors from ENTPE (E. Song and C. Marquis-Favre) are members of the LabEx CeLyA (Lyon Acoustics Center, ANR-10-LABX-0060) which also funded a research visit by S.H. Park.
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