Natural Science Forum / Physics / Acoustics / August 2008

I would think they get used to whatever noise there is but would likely
try to venture into more quiet zones. The type of experiment would
also make a difference. I never saw anything being done with vibration
in rat rooms, just on the experiment table itself.

greg

    Way, way back in the past (1950-55), mice were raised at the Penn State
Acoustics Laboratory for experiements on annoyance of sound (we found
that their adrenal glands enlarged when they were exposed to 90 dB sound
for hours each day). But that's not your question.

    I think that the only way you will find whether the daily noise and
vibration environment you present to the mice is of perturbing nature is
to raise a few mice in each of several environments, noting the noise
and vibration in each as well as the general heath of the resuting
offsprings. As a fist approximation, the human residential comfort
criteria should be used as a starting point. Regarding vibration, I
suspect that their threshold will be less than that for humans by
perhaps 10 dB. But that's the very parameter you need to evaluate by the
above experiment.

        Angelo Campane;;a