What is noise? What variables determine the impact of noise on human behavior? As far as human perception of sound is concerned, it can be divided into music and noise. Generally, a more harmonious and pleasant sound is called music. When sounds with different frequencies and intensities are irregularly combined together, it becomes noise, and the sound composed of all sounds with equal frequencies and intensities is called white noise. If noise is defined from a psychological point of view, it can be said that all sounds that people evaluate as unnecessary are noise. There are three important variables that play a decisive role: volume, predictability and perceptual controllability. (1) The louder the noise, the easier it is to interfere with people's verbal communication, resulting in individual physiological awakening and stress and distraction. ⑵ Unpredictable and irregular noise is more boring than predictable and continuous noise. For predictable noise, it will be easier to adapt, and individuals will gradually get used to and adapt. (3) If the noise is beyond people's control, the interference it produces is stronger than the noise that can be controlled. The above three variables can be combined in any form, but when the noise is large, unpredictable and uncontrollable, the interference is the biggest. There are other factors that will increase people's boredom with noise. These factors are: when we think noise is unnecessary; When people find themselves unable to control noise in a noisy environment; Hearing noise, knowing that it is harmful to health; When noise causes fear; When you are dissatisfied with other aspects of your surroundings because of noise. What effects does noise have on people's physical and mental health? (1) Hearing impairment. Includes two cases: temporary threshold change and permanent threshold change. Hearing impaired patients with temporary hearing threshold changes can recover to normal hearing threshold within 16 hours after noise elimination; When the hearing impairment is a permanent threshold change, the hearing can't return to the normal level within one month or more after the noise is eliminated. ② Influence of noise on health. High level noise may lead to physiological activation and a series of stress reactions. Raise blood pressure and affect nervous system and gastrointestinal function. It affects the immune system of people and animals, causing insomnia and other symptoms. Noise can not only directly affect individual health, but also indirectly affect health by changing some behaviors. Because of noise, people will drink more coffee or wine and smoke more cigarettes, which is indirectly caused. (3) It also has adverse effects on people's mental health. Such as headache, nausea, irritability, anxiety, impotence and emotional instability. The probability of mental illness is higher in high noise areas. Noise causes mental illness through some intermediary variables. In a noisy environment, the individual's sense of perception and control will be weakened, resulting in helplessness; These psychological reactions will lead to mental illness more easily. Discuss the relationship between noise and operation. (1) The influence of noise presentation period. In a noisy environment, people's operation behavior will be affected and the error rate will increase. The degree of influence is determined by many factors, such as noise variables (intensity, predictability and controllability), task types, individual tolerance (sensitivity) and personality characteristics. (2) The influence of noise. The influence after noise is greater than when noise appears. Many studies have proved that the influence after noise mainly depends on the perceptual control of noise. When the individual has control ability, the influence of noise on operation behavior will be relatively small. (3) Noise may damage children's cognition. (4) The occurrence of noise influence. Noise affects task operation because it has an inherent "masking" effect on speech, making it difficult for individuals to "hear what they are thinking". Noise may weaken the individual's extraction and response to information. The view that noise narrows the attention range: the performance of narrowing the attention range includes the ability to recall information unrelated to the task or related information and the weakening ability to obtain information. Discuss the influence of noise on social behavior. Noise will not only cause hearing loss, affect people's physiological function and mental health, interfere with operational behavior, but also affect people's social relations, such as interpersonal attraction, altruistic behavior and aggressive behavior. (1) Noise and interpersonal attraction By measuring interpersonal distance, it is found that when the noise intensity is 80dB, the distance that makes people feel comfortable with each other increases. Noise makes people demand more personal space and reduces interpersonal attraction. Traffic noise around the residential area reduces the communication between neighbors. (2) Noise and aggressive noise will increase the level of arousal and should also enhance aggression, especially for people with aggressive tendencies. However, noise does not directly enhance aggression, it only affects aggression when an individual is irritated or in a bad mood. ⑶ Noise and altruistic behavior The individual's helping behavior is more in a positive emotional state than in a negative emotional state. Under the conditions of normal noise, 65dB and 85dB white noise, the percentage of helping to pick up dropped books and periodicals is 72%, 67% and 37% respectively. Other studies have also obtained the same results. Noise narrows people's attention span and can't pay attention to the needs of others, thus reducing the behavior of helping others. Note: Environmental psychology is a discipline that pays attention to the interaction and relationship between people and the environment. The term "environmental psychology" was formally put forward at the joint meeting of American hospitals (1964). 1970, the first textbook of environmental psychology was published. The Journal of Environmental Psychology was founded in 198 1. The American Psychological Conference (APA) formally established the branch of population and environmental psychology on 1978. Environmental psychology appeared in the late 1960s, developed in the 1970s (such as crowding and cognitive development), and entered the era of vigorous development in the 1980s. Theoretically, environmental psychology has six theoretical frameworks, namely, awakening theory, environmental load theory, stress and adaptation theory, privacy regulation theory, ecological psychology and behavioral situation theory, exchange theory and so on. The new research results pay attention to the characteristics of living environment, workplace, hospital, school, prison and large community environment. Explain the impact of environmental pressures, attitudes and behaviors on protection, crime, population and disasters. In recent years, environmental psychology has the following characteristics: 1) More research is conducted in the field rather than in the laboratory; 2) Researchers began to pay attention to the continuity of research work; 3) The research reflects various methods used in previous work; 4) Interdisciplinary cooperation is increasing. Stowe Cowles suggested that in the 2 1 century, there may be more outstanding developments in other topics: what are the characteristics of living and working in outer space; How to form effective policies to reduce the unlimited consumption of natural resources in industrialized and developed countries. Future research will be influenced by the following factors: 1) global environmental change; 2) Inter-group violence and crime; 3) The influence of new information technology on work and family; 4) The improvement of people's health expenditure, their interest in environmental strategies to promote health, and the process of social aging. At present, there are some problems in this subject: 1) researchers do not attach importance to previous literature, lack the necessary repetition of previous research, and lack the accumulation of knowledge; 2) everyone's research is isolated from each other; 3) The researchers in this discipline failed to pay enough attention to the research and theory in other fields; 4) Looking back frequently and in time, the efforts to synthesize the research results are not enough; 5) Not paying attention to theoretical construction; 6) The definition and use of terms and concepts used are inconsistent, and insufficient attention is paid to them; 7) It is not enough to hold regular open and organized debates on key issues. Global environmental psychology: environmental psychologists in different countries adopt the same research methods and techniques, but have different interests and characteristics in studying problems; With the development of society and the advancement of globalization, different countries and regions often face the same problems.