Today's Trivia
Researchers have linked what environmental feature to increased cortisol levels?
Rodney Schmaltz and some colleagues hypothesized that infrasound, low rumbling inaudible to human ears, might have something to do with it. This low frequency sound is common in nature, generated by heavy surf, volcanoes, and tectonic plates. Elephants use it to communicate. It’s also produced by ventilation systems, air-conditioning systems, pipes, and traffic.
They invited 36 people, mostly women, to sit alone in a room while they played either calming or unsettling music and, through hidden subwoofers, rumbling infrasound at 18 hertz. (The threshold for human hearing is 20 hertz.) After listening, the subjects were asked to report on their emotional states and to provide saliva samples. What they found is that the participants who had been listening to infrasound—without knowing it—showed higher levels of cortisol in their saliva and reported feeling more irritable. They also reported finding the music sadder and less interesting, regardless of the type of music. While the sample size was small, it offers a preliminary set of data points from which to conduct further studies. (Read on Nautilus)
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