What scares you?

Researchers continue testing infrasound impacts used in a haunted house setting and are analysing what will increase a fright response.

 

“Infrasound is a sound that’s below what we can hear, below 20 hertz. But you can still feel it. It’s like a low, rumbling base sound,” associate professor Rodney Schmaltz explained.

Infrasound is found and has been measured in homes being exposed to industrial wind turbines noise emissions. Reported adverse health symptoms of impacted residents adjacent to industrial wind turbines mirror many of the reactions observed by researchers looking to increase the spook experience when using infrasound.

Half of the volunteers would go through with the low frequency noise, half would go through without it.

“The hair on the back of your neck goes up; you feel something.”

“You might go, ‘Oh, it’s a ghost!’ When in fact it’s just infrasound,” Schmaltz said.

Researchers test scary sounds at Deadmonton haunted house

By: Sarah Kraus
Reporter Global News
October 20, 2017

With Halloween just around the corner, researchers are using Edmonton’s scariest haunted house to test a theory on how sound contributes to fear.

MacEwan University professors chose to conduct their study at Deadmonton in the old Paramount Theatre for the second year in a row.

In its fourth year in Alberta’s capital, Deadmonton is known for providing a thrill.

“You can basically expect an intense, very scary walk-through experience, like you’ve never experienced before,” explained owner Ryan Kozar.

“It’s not like the old haunted house rides that you’d see at the fair back in the day.”

He normally tries to spook all of the senses in the haunted house.

“You walk into the summoning room — there’s cemetery sounds. You go through the woods, the swamp scene — there’s swap sounds, there’s crickets. It brings it all to life. There might be some scents in there, too.”

Researchers from MacEwan University are especially interested in analyzing the impact of an inaudible sound.

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