Noise annoyance:: Conceptualisation and predictors of psycho-social nature

The emergence of annoyance is influenced apart from physical properties of noise also by a range of factors of psycho-social nature. Social factors concern whole groups of inhabitants and include mainly source evaluation, trust in authorities, history of noise exposure and expectations concerning further development of noise situation. Personal variables constitute a source of inter-individual variability and include noise sensitivity, perceived threat, perceived control, coping capacity and also mood or interaction of noise with actual or intended activity. Annoyance is not a homogenous concept. An analysis of different perspectives suggests that noise influences annoyance in four different but inter-related ways: perceptual unpleasantness, interference with activities, experiential aspect of stress reaction and semantic meaning.