Why are nails on a chalkboard so awful?
Psychoacoustics of a chilling sound
Scientists tried to work out what makes fingernails on a blackboard so awful.
Ig Nobel 2006
Volunteers rated how unpleasant different versions of a scraping sound were. Removing the high-pitched parts did not help much; the mid-range frequencies were the real villain.
One theory they floated: the sound resembles warning cries of primates. Whatever the reason, they got very brave volunteers.
You winced reading this. That’s data.