Evaluation of change in heart rate variability due to different soundscapes

Abstract Soundscapes affect the health and quality of life of humans. Noisy soundscapes have a negative impact on humans causing annoyance, sleep disturbance and cardiovascular issues. This paper analyses the change in heart rate variability (HRV) due to exposure of different soundscape stimuli. A total of 40 soundscape stimuli were collected from New Delhi India, which were grouped into three clusters, ‘Loud’, ‘Active’ and ‘Silent’, based on psychoacoustic indicators. Listening experiments were conducted with 25 healthy participants, during which electro-cardiography responses were collected as response variable. HRV analysis was performed to analyse the change in time domain (Heart rate, SDNN, NN50, pNN50) and frequency domain (VLF, LF, HF, LF/LF ratio) parameters. A significant change in heart rate is observed with an increase in loudness of stimuli. The change in HRV is analysed by considering noise sensitivity level of participants. A significant decrease in SDNN is noted for participants with high noise sensitivity. Frequency domain parameters of HRV did not exhibit a significant change due to noise exposure. A significant decrease in SDNN suggests imbalanced autonomic nervous system activation, which increases the risk of cardiovascular diseases, particularly for people with high noise sensitivity.