## Results and Discussion  
### The Sound-Pressure Levels  
Table 2 shows the L\({}_{\text{Aeq}}\) values for the four different areas (entrances, shopping areas, food court, and playing areas) at the different times of day and different weekdays. The minimum L\({}_{\text{Aeq}}\) was 58 dB in the shopping area on Monday morning, and the maximum L\({}_{\text{Aeq}}\) was 83 dB at the playing area \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{l} \hline \hline
**Part 1: General Information** \\ \hline Age: \\ Gender: \\ Working Place: \\ Occupation: \\ Educational status: \\ Income Level: \\ Working time and duration: \\ \hline
**Part 2: Hearing and Acoustic Comfort Related Problems** \\
1. Do you have any hearing related problems? Yes \\
2. How do you evaluate the sound level in the shopping mall? \\
3. Very calm \\ Canm \\ Fair \\ \hline
3. How do evaluate the acoustic comfort in the mall? \\
4. Very comfortable \\
5. How do you evaluate your ability to work in noisy environment? \\
6. Very good \\ Good \\ \hline
5. What are the main sources of noise in the shopping mall? (multiple answers are allowed) \\
6. Music \\ \hline
6. Do you suffer from any of the following problem due your work in the mall? (multiple answers are allowed) \\ Communication problems \\ \hline
7. Temporary hearing loss \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 1: The questionnaire used in this study. on Friday evening. In comparison with possible noisy industrial environments, the maximum sound levels in the small are low. These levels do not exceed the 80-85 dBA levels for eight working hours that may create problems and noise-induced hearing loss [18]. However, the annoyance problems are not just related to the sound-pressure levels, but also to the type of noise (children yelling, objects dragging on the floor, music, or electromechanical-systems sounds) and to other environmental factors, like temperature, lighting, and humidity [13; 19]. The range of the L\({}_{\text{Aeq}}\) in the playing area was the highest (71-83 dBA), followed by the food court (61-76 dBA), which included levels that may interfere with speech intelligibility. On the other hand, the sound-pressure levels in the shopping areas were the lowest (58-70 dBA), followed by the entrances (60-71 dBA). The differences in L\({}_{\text{Aeq}}\) between the different locations is statistically significant, with \(p<0.001\) (F = 364.91), calculated using a repeated measures ANOVA. The significant difference in L\({}_{\text{Aeq}}\) applies to the relation between all locations. The playing areas and food courts showed the highest sound-pressure levels, L\({}_{\text{Aeq}}\), with a very clear difference between the early morning and evening periods for the food court. This is due to the large number of users dining there in the evening, compared with other times of day, and on the weekend, compared with the weekdays. The sources of the sounds included people talking loudly, children playing and yelling, employees of restaurants shouting, background music, and dragging chairs. The fluctuations in the L\({}_{\text{Aeq}}\) are visible between the early morning time and the late evening time, and similarly between the weekdays and weekend days. Figure 4 shows the measurement of L\({}_{\text{Aeq}}\) of two days (Tuesday (a weekday) and Friday (a weekend day)). On both weekend days and weekdays, the L\({}_{\text{Aeq}}\) increases from the early morning to the evening, and the differences range from 5 to 9 dB at the entrances, from 5 to 9 dB in the shopping areas, from 5 to 13 dB in the food courts, and was 6 dB in the playing areas for the mentioned days. We notice that the minimum changes occurred in the playing area, which could be related to the already high background noise due the sounds of the gaming consoles and the toys used in this area (trains, horses, swing carousels, etc.). The analysis of the differences in L\({}_{\text{Aeq}}\) at different times within the day, over the whole week, were shown to be statistically significant, with \(p<0.001\) (F = 54.24), using a repeated-measures ANOVA.