Urban park soundscapes can help children recover from stress, with significant differences between boys and girls

Shu, S. ., & Ma, H. . (2020). Restorative effects of urban park soundscapes on children’s psychophysiological stress. Applied Acoustics, 164.

The restorative effects of nature are well documented in the literature. Related studies, however, have generally focused on adults versus children and have given little attention to the restorative potential of soundscapes in natural environments. This study addressed these concerns by investigating the restorative benefits of various soundscapes on children's stress recovery in a simulated situation of an urban park.

This study was conducted in China with 53 children (age 8-12) participating. Two sessions of experiments were conducted: One using objective measures to see if exposure to urban park soundscapes could facilitate physiological recovery; the other using a subjective measure to assess the children's psychological response. The children were randomly assigned to four of seven simulated soundscape groups: silence, music sound, stream sound, fountain sound, bell ring, birdsong, and ambient noise. Before exposure to the different soundscapes, the children completed an arithmetic task to induce mental stress. They were then exposed to a 3-minute period soundscape, with their physiological reactions being monitored throughout the experiment by electrodermal activity (EDA) and heart rate (HR) measures. The Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM) was used to measure the children's psychological reactions in the areas of pleasure, arousal, and dominance.

Results showed that children's physiological stress recovered significantly after all soundscapes exposure. The main effect was found on EDA recovery, not on HR recovery. The five perceived restorative soundscapes all showed significantly more psychological restorative effects than ambient noise in the areas of pleasure and arousal, but not for dominance. While the ambient noise seemed to provide some restorative effects on children's physiological health, it showed adverse effects on their psychological emotion. There were significant differences between boys and girls on both physiological and psychological restoration outcomes. For example, while fountain sound and silence seemed to promote EDA recovery and emotional response of girls, they did not do so for boys.

This research indicates that “urban park soundscapes do facilitate psychophysiological recovery on children to some extent” and that overall soundscape design should go beyond noise control. This research also indicates that soundscape design for children should consider gender differences.

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