PSYCHOPHYSICAL HEALTH IN RELATION TO THE ENVIRONMENTAL NOISE PERCEPTION IN YOUNGER VERSUS OLDER GROUPS OF PEOPLE IN DHAKA CITY

Abstract: Auditory perception towards environmental noise was tested individually in 510 graduate and undergraduate student participants (18-28 yrs) who were experienced in habitually noisy-living areas. A 15-item questionnaire was developed to measure the auditory perception and the responses were evaluated by 10 teachers of Psychology living and working in Dhaka City. Another 33-item ‘Burns Anxiety Inventory ’ questionnaire for the assessment of psychophysical health was used for the same participants. Results showed that increased level of negative perception towards environmental noise maintain a significant linear relation with the degradation of psychophysical health (P<0.01). Another study similar to the above one was performed in which age factor was tested as a parameter. The results of the second study on 345 older participants (55-65 yrs) showed a significant improvement of psychophysical health (P<0.05), though the respondents have had negative perception towards environmental noise. The inverse results of these two studies have been interpreted by assuming a threshold function (λ) betwee