Can you hear a difference between sick and normal coughs, sneezes? Experts weigh in
The novel coronavirus has some people turning their heads left and right as soon as they hear a cough or sneeze nearby.
But new research says you shouldn’t be too quick to judge, at least without other sensory information — such as sight.
People can’t hear the difference between sickness and health based on the sound of a cough or sneeze alone, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
“Are people able to accurately identify infectious and non-infectious coughs and sneezes? We find no sufficient evidence that people can,” the researchers said in their study. “Instead, the more disgusting they perceived a sound to be, the more likely they were to judge that it came from an infected person (regardless of whether it did).”
That mentality lines up with previous studies that suggest people can use their senses to “accurately” identify infection in another person, but the researchers say hearing has been left out of the picture.
People tend to be disgusted by fecal-shaped objects, regardless of their infectiousness, and the majority are also grossed out when looking at pus-like fluid, the study said.
But “the ability to identify infected individuals by sound seems useful in avoiding infection, especially as it would allow detection from safer distances,” the researchers said: a skill that could prove useful as some people try to avoid potentially infected individuals using the coroanvirus’s signature dry cough.
Just like early humans evolved to dwell on the negative — like people still do today — as a way of protecting themselves from environmental threats, one might expect abilities to detect and avoid infection to have evolved over time, too.
Turns out, we didn’t get so lucky.
The researchers performed three separate studies to determine if people can accurately identify an infectious cough or sneeze from its sound by having them listen to YouTube clips of supposed sick and healthy coughs and sneezes in random order.
The groups had between 150 and 200 participants each, with an average age of 36. The first group was asked to identify the infectiousness of coughs and sneezes based on sound, the second was told to rate how disgusting the sounds were and the third group was asked to do a combination of both.
Across all studies, people were right anywhere between 43% and 45% of the time, which is “not statistically significant from chance (50%),” the researchers said.
Even though they couldn’t tell the difference, the participants were confident their judgments were correct, according to the study.
Next time you hear a particularly mucousy sneeze, or in this case a bone-dry cough, remember that it might just be seasonal allergies.
This story was originally published June 11, 2020 at 8:51 AM with the headline "Can you hear a difference between sick and normal coughs, sneezes? Experts weigh in."
