Naturljud inomhus - En pilotstudie i tre fall

It's an everyday experience shared by many that nature can be of help in relieving pain, reducing stress, support mental recovery etc. In the last three decades or so this experience has also found support in a large number of scientific investigations. Among other things the experience of nature has been shown to reduce stress and pain in patients and to boost concentration and reduce impulsive behavior in children. Most of this research however has mainly been concerned with the visual modality. In this thesis the aim has been to focus on the auditory modality in this context by trying to reveal some effects on people from the exposure of nature sounds played indoors in three different environments: a grammar school class room, a kindergarten play room and a post-surgery wake up room at an intensive care unit. The results from the class room revealed a great difference among the children in how they perceived the sounds and how the sounds affected their self-reported ability to concentrate. The sounds of nature seemed to have no great impact on the kindergarten children; however the impact that was found was slightly positive. No impact on the investigated parameters of blood pressure, heart rate and respiration rate was found in the subjects at the intensive care unit; though the number of subjects was very small and they were all under heavy influence of anesthesia and analgesic drugs during the sound exposure. Also, the sound environment in the wake up room was very hard to control and was sometimes noisy