Duck quacks found as friendly sound for car horns — survey

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In normal circumstances, quacking probably wouldn’t be considered as a sound you’d want to hear.

But researchers from Soongsil University in Seoul, South Korea discovered that duck quacks were the preferred sound in terms of alerting people without stressing them out.

The researchers were testing for a new car horn sound, considering that while car horns grabbed attention, they also tended to be distracting.

They were looking into replicating the original klaxon which were introduced to vehicles in 1908. Here’s a sample of the vintage car horn (thankfully, we don’t hear this anymore):

Based on this sound, they adjusted “volume and rhythm” to make it more pleasant.

In the survey, 100 people listened to various sounds and rated them for qualities including stress and loudness. Surprisingly, results showed that pedestrians thought the duck quack was the friendliest sound to them.

Lead researcher Professor Myung-Jin Bae hopes to contribute to road safety with this research—perhaps even if it means hearing ducks on the road. Niña V. Guno/JB

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