Deviations in Sound Waves Associated with Physiological and Psychological States

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Abstract
Sound waves are known to be affected by the presence of a human subject in the acoustic environment. Deviations in sound waves are dependent on the position, posture and body mass of the subject, and show consistent variance dependent on the subject and the sound stimulus. To arrive at a better understanding of the nature of this dependency, deviations in sound waves in the presence of a human subject were measured in an acoustic test environment, in conjunction with measurements reporting the physiological and psychological state of subjects in response to a sound stimulus projected in three different room sizes. We find that the absorption or amplification of sound waves in response to the subject is directly proportional to the amplitude of brain activity of the subject, where the amplification of both sound waves and brain activity is associated with an increase in positive valence and decrease in negative valence experienced by the subject. Increased Theta activity corresponded to a strong increase in harmonic power of low sound frequencies in the medium room size, while increased Gamma activity observed in the right parietal lobe indicates an enhanced spatial perception of subjects in this projection. We discuss the potential of these findings for future research and applications.