Wednesday, December 21, 2011

the impact of birdsong on humans

Surrey university in conjunction with the National Trust and Surrey Wildlife Trust are conducting a project to determine whether birdsong has any impact on the health and well being of humans.

Apparently research has been done on responses to vision - hospital patients respond to treatment better if they see images of landscapes rather than urban walls - there has been little research on sound.

Initially volunteers from the National Trust and the Surrey Wildlife Trust will fill in questionnaires to find out their preferences and how they rate the impact of hearing birds.

Overtime this will lead to lab based research where people will be asked to perform tasks whilst listening to different bird song. These may be problem-solving or creative; and the impact of different sounds on parameters such as stress will also be assessed.

It will be interesting to see if different bird song has a different effect. I'd have thought the song of a Robin would have had a different impact compared to say a magpie.

As to me if I hear a lovely little songster like a Robin, a Blackbird or a Song Thrush say it does make me smile

1 comment:

Tricia Ryder said...

Well I know without doubt that hearing "my" robin singing as it gets light in the morning, really sets me up well for the day :D

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