Hi everyone,
I'm new here, but it's an interesting place!
I'm trying to find out why humans famously don't like the sound of chalk on a blackboard, knives scraping on plates, nails scraping on plastered walls, etc. The current 'accepted' theories for our reaction are a mixture between an evolutionary defence mechanism (the sounds share properties with animal screams) and the frequency of these sounds being within the range of human speech, hence our ears have evolved to amplify those frequencies.
I've embedded six 'nasty' recordings and corresponding edits here - http://helios.hud.ac.uk/u0852268/
If anyone has a few minutes it would be great if you could take part, simply grade each edit from one to five in comparison with the reference. 1 being much more horrible than the reference, 2 slightly more horrible, 3 middle ground, 4 slightly less horrible, and 5 much less horrible than the reference.
have fun!
thanks a lot
