over the ne_t five minutes, my intention is to transform your relationshipwith sound. let me start with the observation that most of the sound around usis accidental, and much of it is unpleasant. (traffic noise) we stand on streetcorners, shouting over noise like this, and pretending that it doesn't e_ist.well, this habit of suppressing sound has meant that our relationship with soundhas become largely unconscious.
there are four major ways sound is affecting you all the time, and i'd liketo raise them in your consciousness today. first is physiological. (loud alarmclocks) sorry about that. i've just given you a shot of cortisol, yourfight/flight hormone. sounds are affecting your hormone secretions all the time,but also your breathing, your heart rate -- which i just also did -- and yourbrainwaves.
it's not just unpleasant sounds like that that do it. this is surf. (oceanwaves) it has the frequency of roughly 12 cycles per minute. most people findthat very soothing, and, interestingly, 12 cycles per minute is roughly thefrequency of the breathing of a sleeping human. there is a deep resonance withbeing at rest. we also associate it with being stress-free and on holiday.
the second way in which sound affects you is psychological. music is themost powerful form of sound that we know that affects our emotional state.(albinoni's adagio) this is guaranteed to make most of you feel pretty sad if ileave it on. music is not the only kind of sound, however, which affects youremotions.
natural sound can do that too. birdsong, for e_ample, is a sound which mostpeople find reassuring. (birds chirping) there is a reason for that. overhundreds of thousands of years we've learned that when the birds are singing,things are safe. it's when they stop you need to be worried.
the third way in which sound affects you is cognitively. you can'tunderstand two people talking at once ("if you're listening to this version of")("me you're on the wrong track.") or in this case one person talking twice. tryand listen to the other one. ("you have to choose which me you're going tolisten to.")
we have a very small amount of bandwidth for processing auditory input,which is why noise like this -- (office noise) -- is e_tremely damaging forproductivity. if you have to work in an open-plan office like this, yourproductivity is greatly reduced. and whatever number you're thinking of, itprobably isn't as bad as this. (ominous music) you are one third as productivein open-plan offices as in quiet rooms. and i have a tip for you. if you have towork in spaces like that, carry headphones with you, with a soothing sound likebirdsong. put them on and your productivity goes back up to triple what it wouldbe.
the fourth way in which sound affects us is behaviorally. with all thatother stuff going on, it would be amazing if our behavior didn't change. (technomusic inside a car) so, ask yourself: is this person ever going to drive at asteady 28 miles per hour? i don't think so. at the simplest, you move away fromunpleasant sound and towards pleasant sounds. so if i were to play this --(jackhammer) -- for more than a few seconds, you'd feel uncomfortable; for morethan a few minutes, you'd be leaving the room in droves. for people who can'tget away from noise like that, it's e_tremely damaging for their health.
and that's not the only thing that bad sound damages. most retail sound isinappropriate and accidental, and even hostile, and it has a dramatic effect onsales. for those of you who are retailers, you may want to look away before ishow this slide. they are losing up to 30 percent of their business with peopleleaving shops faster, or just turning around on the door. we all have done it,leaving the area because the sound in there is so dreadful.
i want to spend just a moment talking about the model that we've developed,which allows us to start at the top and look at the drivers of sound, analyzethe soundscape and then predict the four outcomes i've just talked about. orstart at the bottom, and say what outcomes do we want, and then design asoundscape to have a desired effect. at last we've got some science we canapply. and we're in the business of designing soundscapes.
just a word on music. music is the most powerful sound there is, ofteninappropriately deployed. it's powerful for two reasons. you recognize it fast,and you associate it very powerfully. i'll give you two e_amples. (first chordof the beatles' "a hard day's night") most of you recognize that immediately.the younger, maybe not. (laughter) (first two notes of "jaws" theme) and most ofyou associate that with something! now, those are one-second samples of music.music is very powerful. and unfortunately it's veneering commercial spaces,often inappropriately. i hope that's going to change over the ne_t fewyears.
let me just talk about brands for a moment, because some of you run brands.every brand is out there making sound right now. there are eight e_pressions ofa brand in sound. they are all important. and every brand needs to haveguidelines at the center. i'm glad to say that is starting to happen now. (intelad jingle) you all recognize that one. (nokia ringtone) this is the most-playedtune in the world today. 1.8 billion times a day, that tune is played. and itcost nokia absolutely nothing.
just leave you with four golden rules, for those of you who run businesses,for commercial sound. first, make it congruent, pointing in the same directionas your visual communication. that increases impact by over 1,100 percent. ifyour sound is pointing the opposite direction, incongruent, you reduce impact by86 percent. that's an order of magnitude, up or down. this is important.secondly, make it appropriate to the situation. thirdly, make it valuable. givepeople something with the sound. don't just bombard them with stuff. and,finally, test and test it again. sound is comple_. there are many countervailinginfluences. it can be a bit like a bowl of spaghetti: sometimes you just have toeat it and see what happens.
so i hope this talk has raised sound in your consciousness. if you'relistening consciously, you can take control of the sound around you. it's goodfor your health. it's good for your productivity. if we all do that we move to astate that i like to think will be sound living in the world. i'm going to leaveyou with a little bit more birdsong. (birds chirping) i recommend at least fiveminutes a day, but there is no ma_imum dose. thank you for lending me your earstoday. (applause)
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