We ’re Not Very Good At Identifying Illness From Sounds of Coughs and Sneezes

By Emily Reynolds At the moment, most of us are on red alert when it comes to sounds of illness, with sniffling in the supermarket or coughing behind us in a queue the cause of significant alarm. And while we might like to think we’re able to tell the difference between someone clearing their throat and somebody who is genuinely unwell, new research published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B suggests we’re less good at identifying threats than we think. To investigate how well people can detect pathogen threats from cough and sneeze sounds, Nicholas M. Michalak from the University of Michigan and colleagues first recruited 148 participants to listen to 20 audio clips of coughs and sneezes taken from online videos. Half of these sounds were from people who were genuinely ill with colds or the flu, whilst the other half merely had allergies or had consumed powdery spices and were therefore non-infectious. After each clip, participants indicated whether they thought the sound was from someone with an infectious or non-infectious condition, and were also asked how certain they were about their answer. Finally, they completed an index of disease concern, which measures worries about contracting certain illnesses. But participants were no better than chance at correctly identifying infectious and non-infectious coughs and sneezes, with 45% accuracy across the board and no difference when it came to each type of sound. Participants were reasonably certain about their judgm...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Health Perception Source Type: blogs