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ESL / EFL Lesson Activity on Horrible Noises

Don’t you just the sound of fingernails scraping a school chalkboard? The screeching sound many people goose bumps or makes their hair stand on . Now scientists think they have out why. Researchers from the Macromedia University for Media and Communication in Cologne, Germany say the the sound is so unpleasant is because it is at a frequency to human speech. Our ears are designed to sounds at that frequency much , so the nails on chalkboard sound becomes much to us than other sounds.

Lead researcher professor Michael Oehler did a where some listeners thought they were listening to music, and others were told they had to listen to horrible sounds. The people professor Oehler were listening to fingernails found the sound unpleasant than he didn’t tell. Professor Oehler measured heart and blood to find out which sounds were the . The researchers found other sounds that people did not like, including a scraping across a plate and squeaking polystyrene.