[accidc]

It amuses me when people from western countries complain about noise(most comments contain clues to location).

Having lived most of my life in India, noise has never been an issue for me, even while doing tasks that require intense concentration. It's like the brain implements a band pass filter for most ambient noise, you never notice it. I have also noticed that the more I concentrate on a task at hand, the less I notice anything else around me.

On the other hand, I have been living outside India for the past few years and I notice noise a lot more.

Make what you want of this but it has lead me to believe that our perception of noise is a function of our state of mind, the ambient noise level and our conditioning/habituation. The takeaway being that it is possible to learn to ignore noise, since in most situations one may not be able to control the source of the noise.

[GlennS]

I get that too, if I'm reading or writing then nothing short of shouting or a physical tap on the shoulder can bring me back to reality.

But I'm not convinced everyone can learn it. I know people who are light sleepers and get jolted awake in the night because of noise. You'd think if their brains could adapt to filter out the ambient noise then they would have for the situation. Regularly interrupted sleep is probably pretty annoying.