Lesson25Non- auditor

First listen and then answer the following question

所录帝,然后回答以下问题。

What conclusion does the author draw about noise and health in this piece?

Many people in industry and the Services, who have practical experience of noise, regard any investigation

of this question as a waste of time; they are not prepared even to admit the possibility that noise affects

people. On the other hand. those who dislike noise will sometimes use most inadequate evidence to support

their pleas for a quieter society. This is a pity, because noise abatement really is a good cause, and it is likely

to be discredited if it gets to be associated with bad science

One allegation often made is that noise produces mental illness. A recent article in a weekly newspaper,

r instance, was headed with a striking illustration of a lady in a state of considerable distress, with the

caption "She was yet another victim, reduced to a screaming wreck, On turning eagerly to the text, one

learns that the lady was a typist who found the sound of office typewriters worried her more and more until

eventually she had to go into a mental hospital, Now the snag in this sort of anecdote is of course that one

cannot distinguish cause and effect Was the noise a cause of the illness, or were the complaints about noise

merely a symptom? Another patient might equally well complain that her neighbours were combining to

slander her and persecute her, and yet one might be cautious about believing this statement

What is needed in the case of noise is a study of large numbers of people living under noisy conditions

to discover whether they are mentally ill more often than other people are. Some time ago the United States

Navy. for instance, examined a very large number of men working on aircraft carriers: the study was known

as Project Anehin. It can be unpleasant to live even several miles from an aerodrome; if you think what it

must be like to share the deck of a ship with several squadrons of jet aircraft, you will realize that a modern

havy is a good place to study noise. But neither psychiatric interviews nor objective tests were able to show

any effects upon these American sailors. This result merely confirms earlier American and British studies: if

there is any effect of noise upon mental health, it must be so small that present methods of psychiatrie

cannot find it. That does not prove that it does not exist; but it does mean that noise is less dangerous

say, being brought up in an orphanage-which really is a mental health hazard

D E. BROADBENT Non-auditory effects of noise from Science Surv