Normative emotional responses to environmental sounds in middle-aged to older adults with normal hearing: Stimuli from the Marcell database.

Abstract

This study aimed to provide normative affective ratings for middle-aged to older adults with normal hearing using the Marcell database. The database includes 120 diverse environmental sounds representing various real-world acoustic events, such as those produced by animals, humans, musical instruments, tools, signals, and liquids. Secondary aims were to examine the relationship between valence and arousal, and whether factors such as age, gender, hearing-related lifestyle, hearing demands, and self-reported hearing difficulties influence these affective evaluations. Ninety participants (mean age: 54 ± 9 years) with self-reported normal hearing. The study was conducted online. Participants rated each sound token in the Marcell database in terms of valence (pleasantness) and arousal (intensity). They also completed a hearing-related lifestyle questionnaire assessing the frequency, importance, and difficulty of hearing in everyday situations. Normative data for valence and arousal were calculated as means and standard deviations across participants for each individual sound token. To explore the relationship between valence and arousal, correlation analyses were performed. Furthermore, mixed-effects linear regression was used to examine whether any of the measured variables could predict participants' affective responses to the sounds. Normative data for each individual sound token were obtained and reported. A moderately strong negative correlation was found between valence and arousal ratings, indicating that pleasant sounds were generally perceived as calming, while unpleasant sounds were seen as more arousing. Regression analyses revealed that age, gender, hearing-related lifestyle, hearing demands, and self-reported hearing difficulties did not significantly predict valence or arousal ratings in the current dataset of middle-aged to older adults. The normative data presented in this study offer a benchmark for the hearing research community when examining emotional responses across middle-aged to older adult populations.