Week 4 Tutorial: Measuring the Room's Noise Floor

Logging a quiet room's actual noise floor for ten minutes, to test the lecture's claim that a shush is often louder than what it answers.

17 August 2027

Activity#

Sit in a quiet study space for ten minutes and log every sound above the ambient floor — a chair scrape, a bag zip, a phone buzzing, a phone call — along with whether anyone nearby reacted to it.

Record your reaction#

Note whether the loudest reaction you observed matched the loudest sound, or whether a quieter, longer-running noise went unaddressed longer than a louder, shorter one.

Reflection#

In your own words, explain why the lecture says a room will tolerate a five-minute phone call before anyone shushes, but not a ten-second shush without a much louder reaction to the shush itself.