Both groups were recruited from the general public by advertisement in a local newspaper, by flyers, and from databases of two previous studies with sensitive participants willing to participate in future research projects.
We can either rebel against this superficial drift, or like Dreyfus and Kelly, go with the flow, acknowledging that the autonomous life is impossible, not seeking totalistic theologies, but instead becoming sensitive participants in the collective whooshings that life offers.
There were, however, some indications that noise sensitivity might moderate both subjective and objective measures such as higher ratings of stress and elevated cortisol levels in high noise sensitive participants.
Fifty-one "sensitive" participants and 144 control volunteers completed at least one session.
Sensitive participants reported more symptoms than did controls, but this was not related to exposure condition.
Our final sample of 183 (51 sensitives, 132 controls) included 10 emergency service workers, of these, two were sensitive participants.
For the open provocation, all VAS resulted in a significant main effect for group, with sensitive participants reporting higher levels of anxiety, tension, arousal, discomfort, and fatigue than controls, whereas controls reported higher levels of relaxation than sensitive participants.
In contrast, the sensitive participants reported a significantly higher total symptom score and more symptoms during TETRA than during sham.
The EHQ responses indicated that 11 (21.6%) sensitive participants reported being "a little bit" sensitive, 10 (19.6%) "moderately," 11 (21.6%) "quite a bit," and 12 (23.5%) "a great deal".
