The contribution gives a synopsis of acoustical, psychological and social factors involved in annoyance reactions to noise. Different effects of environmental noise on human behavior are reported and relations to psychological theories of stress are shown. Models with-in the psychologically oriented noise research measuring and predicting annoyance reac-tion-s are presented. Besides, the micro-analytic approach to examine the relationship between noise and performance is briefly described. Finally aspects of noise prevention and problems in definition the limits of noise are discussed. Within a prospect research needs are shown and several deficiencies are noticed.