The NEBB Professional 2024 - Quarter 2

Humans are inherently social beings and find speech almost impossible to ignore. Despite humans’ need for social connection, overheard conversations are the most complained about sound in offices. When people are distracted by someone else’s chatter, they do not have enough mental bandwidth left to focus on their own thoughts and work. This innate response to sound causes frustration and degrades productivity. Workplace sound also affects the quantity and quality of social connections. Not only does silence unnerve people; it also hinders collaboration. People hold back on talking to one another to avoid disturbing their neighbors or being overheard. Workplace designers are then faced with the unenvi able task of creating environments with enough back ground sound that people feel comfortable collabo rating, while also minimizing speech distractions for people who are trying focus. Natural soundscaping can be an antidote to both prob lems. The sounds of water –– like a flowing river –– can be engineered to mask speech very effectively. The ad dition of this soundscaping into a workplace reduces the intelligibility of overheard conversations, making them far less distracting. And in turn, these natural sound

scapes ensure that spaces are never eerily silent and allow people to feel comfortable talking to one another. Natural sounds can even bring a sense of life to emp ty offices. Researchers found that hearing birdsong in empty spaces creates a sense of social presence. They believe it is because birdsong has many complex char acteristics, just like human speech, and therefore sig nifies intelligent life and helps people feel less alone. The human need for sense of place People have an innate need to establish ownership over spaces. Evolutionary, this gave a sense of secu rity. Thus, feeling “at home” and being connected to surroundings is important for human health. Someone’s relationship with a place can take many forms. The connection might be an emotional one –– people are familiar with their sensory surroundings and are emotionally invested in them. Or they could think about the relationship from a physiological per spective –– people’s bodily rhythms are in sync with the cadences of the natural world. Circadian rhythms (internal biological clocks) help hu mans function normally and healthily, alerting, among other things, when it is time to wake up and move or slow down and relax. Most people know that light can

The NEBB Professional | Quarter 2 | 2024

16