Arline Bronzaft, a pre-eminent environmental psychologist who studied the effects of urban noise, suggesting that one reason New York City never sleeps is its cacophony of glaring car horns, ear-splitting pneumatic drills, screeching subway car wheels, gluttonous garbage trucks, warbling sirens and loud, inconsiderate neighbors, died on Oct. 29 in Manhattan. She was 89.

For five decades, Dr. Bronzaft argued that noise was not only exasperating but also harmful to people’s physical and emotional well-being, making them more irritable, aggressive, depressed, tense and vulnerable to dementia and stunting the academic growth of school children.

Last year, New York City’s 311 help line logged some 750,000 phone calls from people complaining about noise. Dr. Bronzaft helped the city revise its noise code in the mid-2000s. The revised code recalibrated limits on everything from barking dogs to nightclub music decibel levels.