How a sound is introduced can change how you experience it. That is why we introduce sounds without claims and suggest comparing them blind.
Wording we use in the app
Claim reviewed: How a sound is introduced can change how it is experienced.
A few controlled studies or meta-analyses; reasonable but limited generalisability.
What do we know, what don't we know?
What do we know?
- SupportIn experiments by one research group with wind turbine sound, the same sound was experienced differently depending on information shown beforehand: those told it was harmful reported more symptoms and worse mood, while those told it was beneficial reported fewer symptoms, better mood and less annoyance.Crichton et al. 2014 · Crichton et al. 2015
- SupportIn the high-expectancy group, symptoms also rose during sham infrasound.Crichton et al. 2014
- SupportIn an experiment with 90 students, the same noise was rated more restorative when it was said to come from a waterfall rather than a factory.Haga et al. 2016
- SupportIn a systematic review of 89 studies, explicit suggestions and high expectations were among the strongest predictors of reporting symptoms after an inert exposure.Webster et al. 2016
What don't we know?
- LimitThe wind turbine experiments all come from one research group; what was measured was symptoms, mood and annoyance reported during short lab listening.Crichton et al. 2014 · Crichton et al. 2014 · Crichton et al. 2015
- LimitThe systematic review is not specific to sound; it also covers medicines and other inert exposures.Webster et al. 2016
- Evidence gapHow long the effect of framing lasts, and how large it is for music or frequency labels, is unknown.
The findings are the sentences of the claim's two paragraphs; each is tied to the source it describes and to its kind (support, limit, evidence gap, context). We show no counts or percentages: how many studies support a claim is not the strength of the evidence. Reading the lens
Sources (5)
Can expectations produce symptoms from infrasound associated with wind turbines?
In a sham-controlled, double-blind experiment, 54 people were exposed to 10 minutes of infrasound and 10 minutes of sham infrasound. In the high-expectancy group, who first watched a video compiled from internet material saying infrasound causes symptoms, the number and intensity of symptoms rose during both real and sham infrasound; there was no change in the low-expectancy group.
Crichton F, Dodd G, Schmid G, Gamble G, Petrie KJ. Can expectations produce symptoms from infrasound associated with wind turbines?. Health Psychol. 2014;33(4):360-4. doi:10.1037/a0031760 PMID 23477573 Go to source
The power of positive and negative expectations to influence reported symptoms and mood during exposure to wind farm sound
Sixty people were randomly assigned to a positive or negative expectation group and exposed to audible wind farm sound and infrasound. Those who watched a video saying infrasound is harmful reported more symptoms and worse mood; those who watched a video about possible benefits of infrasound reported fewer symptoms and better mood.
Crichton F, Dodd G, Schmid G, Gamble G, Cundy T, Petrie KJ. The power of positive and negative expectations to influence reported symptoms and mood during exposure to wind farm sound. Health Psychol. 2014;33(12):1588-92. doi:10.1037/hea0000037 PMID 24274799 Go to source
Framing sound: Using expectations to reduce environmental noise annoyance
Sixty volunteers were randomly assigned to a positive or negative expectation group and exposed twice for 7 minutes to audible wind farm sound and infrasound. Those who watched a video framing the sound positively were significantly less annoyed than those shown a presentation about health risks; noise sensitivity predicted annoyance only in the negative group.
Crichton F, Dodd G, Schmid G, Petrie KJ. Framing sound: Using expectations to reduce environmental noise annoyance. Environ Res. 2015;142:609-14. doi:10.1016/j.envres.2015.08.016 PMID 26313626 Go to source
Psychological Restoration Can Depend on Stimulus-Source Attribution: A Challenge for the Evolutionary Account?
Ninety university students heard the same ambiguous noise (pink noise with interspersed white noise) during a short break between mentally demanding tasks. The group told the sound came from a waterfall rated it more restorative than the group told it came from a factory and the group told nothing; mental exhaustion fell after the break only in this group. Accuracy on the attention test did not differ between conditions.
Haga A, Halin N, Holmgren M, Sörqvist P. Psychological Restoration Can Depend on Stimulus-Source Attribution: A Challenge for the Evolutionary Account?. Front Psychol. 2016;7:1831. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01831 PMID 27933011 Go to source
A systematic review of factors that contribute to nocebo effects
The review included 89 studies (70 experimental, 19 prospective) of factors predicting symptoms after an inert exposure. The strongest predictors were a higher perceived dose, explicit suggestions that the exposure causes symptoms, seeing others experience symptoms, and higher expectations of symptoms.
Webster RK, Weinman J, Rubin GJ. A systematic review of factors that contribute to nocebo effects. Health Psychol. 2016;35(12):1334-55. doi:10.1037/hea0000416 PMID 27657801 Go to source
Method
- Sources and processing
- Each citation was checked against its Crossref and PubMed record; fields that could not be found were left blank, and no figure or citation was guessed.
- How this page was prepared
- The first draft of the claim text was prepared by an AI model (Claude); citations were verified against primary records, and Frekans Studio approved publication. Evidence methodology
- Review
- Last reviewed: 09/10/2026 · Next review: 06/04/2027
- Updates
- Version 3 · 09/10/2026
- Version 2 · 06/10/2026
- Version 1 · 06/10/2026
- Cite as
- Frekans Studio. “How a sound is introduced can change how you experience it. That is why we introduce sounds without claims and suggest comparing them blind.”. Evidence library, version 3, last reviewed 09/10/2026. https://frekans.studio/en/evidence/sound-framing