Healthcare, hospitality, and corporate real estate are plagued by distracting noise pollution, resulting in billions of dollars lost annually. Biophilic soundscapes are a verified alternative to traditional sound masking. They reduce disruptive noise, improve speech privacy, and have even outperformed traditional masking sounds in terms of speech masking.

Noise and productivity

One of the most apparent effects of noise in buildings is on our productivity. Noise reduces our productivity by anywhere between 4–66%.^{1, 2, 3} It impacts our concentration,⁴ reading comprehension,^{3, 5} memory,^{4, 6, 7} task motivation,^{4, 8} creative thinking,⁹ logical reasoning,^{10, 11} and communication.¹²

Once we’ve been distracted, it then takes an average of 23 minutes to re-engage with the task in hand.13

Biophilic sound masking

Biophilic soundscapes are a scientifically verified alternative to traditional sound masking. In 2011 a comparison of five masking conditions, which included filtered pink noise, showed that the sound of natural spring water was the optimal speech masker based on both task performance and user preference.¹⁴

Further research has since reinforced this finding. In a breakthrough study conducted in 2015, natural sound even outperformed the gold standard for psychoacoustic research: silence.15 Even compared to silence, people exposed to biophilic sound performed better on cognitive tests,16 while also showing evidence of improved restoration.¹⁵

A holistic approach to productivity

While these examples focus on productivity on a traditional sense (the direct impact of distracting noise on task performance), in reality many wider factors contribute to productivity. These include health and wellbeing, which is also a key focus for Moodsonic's soundscapes.

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References

1. Banbury, S., & Berry, D. C. (1998). Disruption of office-related tasks by speech and office noise.British Journal of Psychology, 89(3), 499–517

‍2. Hongisto, V. (2005). A model predicting the effect of speech of varying intelligibility on work performance. Indoor Air.

‍3. Hongisto, V., Haapakangas, A., & Haka, M. (2008). Task performance and speech intelligibility - a model to promote noise control actions in open offices. 9th International Congress on Noise as a Public Health Problem (ICBEN).

‍4. Jahncke, H., Hygge, S., Halin, N., Green, A. M., & Dimberg, K. (2011). Open-plan office noise: Cognitive performance and restoration. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 4(11), 373-382.

‍5. Martin, R. C., Wogalter, M. S., & Forlano, J. G. (1988). Reading comprehension in the presence of unattended speech and music. Journal of Memory and Language, 27(4), 382-98.

‍6. Jones, D. (2010). The cognitive psychology of auditory distraction: The 1997 BPS Broadbent Lecture. British Journal of Psychology, 90(2), 167-187.

‍7. Colle, H. A., & Welsh, A. (1976). Acoustic masking in primary memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 15(1), 17-31.

‍8. Herman Miller. (2015). It’s a Matter of Balance: New Understandings in Open-Plan Acoustics.‍

‍9. Mehta, R., Zhu, R. (Juliet), & Cheema, A. (2012). Is Noise Always Bad? Exploring the Effects of Ambient Noise on Creative Cognition. Journal of Consumer Research.

‍10. Dornic, S. (1983). Physical noise vs. semantic noise: the effect on information processing. Proceedings of the 4th Intern. Cong.on Noise as a Public Health Problem, Centro Ric, 739–750.

‍11.Dornic, S., Larsson, T., Sarnelid, M., & Svensson, J. (1982). Noise Intensity vs. Noise Content in Information Processing. Reports from the Department of Psychology, University of Stockholm, Number 592.

‍12. Rafferty, A., Xyrichis, A., Wynne, J., & Mackrill, J. (2017). Hospital project on noise, sound and sleep. King’s College London.

‍13. Mark, G., Gudith, D., & Klocke, U. (2008). The cost of interrupted work: More speed and stress.Proceedings of the 2008 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Florence, Italy.

‍14. Haapakangas, A., Kankkunen, E., Hongisto, V., Virjonen, P., Oliva, D., & Keskinen, E. (2011). Effects of five speech masking sounds on performance and acoustic satisfaction. implications for open-plan offices. Acta Acustica United with Acustica.

‍15. DeLoach, A. G., Carter, J. P., & Braasch, J. (2015). Tuning the cognitive environment: Sound masking with “natural” sounds in open-plan offices. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

‍16. Proverbio, A. M., De Benedetto, F., Ferrari, M. V., & Ferrarini, G. (2018). When listening to rain sounds boosts arithmetic ability. PLoS ONE.

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