Noise sensitivity
Research Interest

Overview:

Noise sensitivity is seen as a stable personality trait which helps to explain the often considerable individual variation in the degree of annoyance produced by environmental sounds. Research conducted in collaboration with Karin Zimmer (and more recently with ENTPE, Lyon, see News), focuses on developing psychometrically sound questionnaires to assess noise sensitivity, in order to provide an alternative to the ad-hoc measures often seen in large-scale noise surveys. At present,

  • a German version of Weinstein's (1978) noise sensitivity scale,
  • a newly developed 52-item questionnaire (LEF; Zimmer & Ellermeier, 1998a), and
  • a short (9-item) form of that questionnaire (Zimmer & Ellermeier, 1998b)

are available (in German, English, French, and Korean).


Publications:

  • Ellermeier, W., Kattner, F., Klippenstein, E., Kreis, M. & Marquis-Favre, C. (2020). Short-term annoyance and electrodermal response as a function of sound-pressure level, cognitive task load, and noise sensitivity. Noise & Health, 22, 46-55. Link to Journal
  • Ellermeier, W., Eigenstetter, M. & Zimmer, K. (2001). Psychoacoustic correlates of individual noise sensitivity. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 109, 1464-1473. (opens in new tab)
  • Zimmer, K. & Ellermeier, W. (1999). Psychometric properties of four measures of noise sensitivity: A comparison. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 19, 295-302. (opens in new tab)
  • Zimmer, K. & Ellermeier, W. (1998a). Konstruktion und Evaluation eines Fragebogens zur Erfassung der individuellen Lärmempfindlichkeit. Diagnostica, 44, 11-20.
  • Zimmer, K. & Ellermeier, W. (1998b). Ein Kurzfragebogen zur Erfassung der individuellen Lärmempfindlichkeit. Umweltpsychologie, 2, 54-63.
  • Zimmer, K. & Ellermeier, W. (1997). Eine deutsche Version der Lärmempfindlichkeitsskala von Weinstein. Zeitschrift für Lärmbekämpfung, 44, 107-110.


Collaborators: