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Relating Acoustics to Human Responses in Pediatric/Neonatal Hospital Units with Unsupervised Learning Techniques
Abstract
The fundamental roles of hospitals are to provide healthcare services while maintaining healing and safe environments for patient recovery. Such an environment is achieved through several factors and sound has been recognized as one of the primary environmental factors. Sound is an important sensory factor in hospitals because it can carry various types of information, travel through space, and be captured by multiple individuals simultaneously. Despite these potentially beneficial aspects of hospital sounds, hospital noise is usually perceived as unpleasant. Over the past several decades, a number of researchers have explored the phenomena of hospital noise. However, a limited number of studies have thoughtfully discussed relationships between hospital noise and human responses using advanced statistical analyses such as unsupervised learning techniques. This research explored potential associations between acoustical factors and human responses in pediatric and neonatal care units. Staff psychological assessments and acoustical measurements were first analyzed separately for subjective and objective acoustical aspects, respectively. Then, potential correlations of both aspects were examined. Detailed statistical analyses on each of the aspects along with thoughtful interpretations and validations are presented. Completing this research reveals some notable/problematic associations between acoustical factors and human responses as well as potential spectral/transient noise components affecting some perceptual outcomes.
Subject Area
Acoustics
Recommended Citation
Hasegawa, Yoshimi, "Relating Acoustics to Human Responses in Pediatric/Neonatal Hospital Units with Unsupervised Learning Techniques" (2019). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI22588640.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI22588640