Contribution
Humming and Buzzing - Acoustical Features of Annoying Mosquito Noises
* Presenting author
Abstract:
Background: Mosquitoes transmit diseases such as malaria or dengue and are difficult to monitor due to their tiny sizes ranging from 3-15 millimeters [1]. A method of documentation is the acoustical analysis of species-specific wing beats, which allows a rough interpretation of species and sex [2]. For humans and animals, only female mosquitoes can be dangerous. With their wings they produce a buzzing sound of around 300-400 Hz, while the wing frequency of males is above 600 Hz [2][3].Research Question: Which sound characteristics are responsible for mosquito buzzing being considered annoying and dangerous? Method: 16 mosquito buzzing sounds were rated by 54 participants (26m/25f/3d, aged 18-80, mv:42) in terms of annoyance (not annoying – really annoying) and bite probability (1-100%). The sounds were analysed for 180 sound characteristics using audio signal analysis toolboxes which were compared with mean ratings. Results: People who are frequently stung give higher bite probability ratings than those who are rarely stung (t(52)=-2.716; p<0.05). The assessment of annoyance is similar to the rated bite probability and increases especially with the strength of the first partial (r_annoyance=0.659, r_bite=0.786; p<0.001) as well as with spectral contrast in the frequency band 200-400 Hz (r_annoyance=0.515, r_bite =0.622; p<0.05).