Fingernails on a Chalkboard Study Wins Award

A Vanderbilt Psychologist is being honored for his work regarding one of the most universally unpleasant sounds.

Two decades ago, Randolph Blake worked with colleagues at Northwestern University set out to discover just why just about everyone is bothered by the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard. They began with the hypothesis that the sound’s upper frequencies were simply too high for comfort, but were surprised to find that the middle tones were the actual culprit.

After comparing those middle frequencies to other sounds in nature, Blake says they discovered a nearly identical match in the sounds primates make to warn of danger.

“So our speculation, ‘course this, our results didn’t prove this, but our speculation was that the reason this sound, fingernails on a chalkboard, has this kind of universal aversive quality is that it triggers in us an unconscious automatic reflex of we’re hearing-that we’re hearing a warning cry.”

Last week, the study was singled out for an Ig Nobel Prize for Acoustics. The award is given by the Society for Improbable Research to imaginative projects that make people first laugh and then think.

Blake accepted the award during a ceremony at Harvard, in which actual Nobel laureates served as presenters.

The event will be featured the day after Thanksgiving on NPR’s Talk of the Nation/Science Friday.