Effects of Hearing Protectors on Auditory Localization in Azimuth and Elevation

Bolia, Robert S.; D'Angelo, William R.; Mishler, Pamela J.; Morris, Linda J.

doi:10.1518/001872001775992499

Cited by 27 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 18 publications

(19 reference statements)

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“…Conventional passive HPDs are necessary as a countermeasure against noise-induced hearing loss in workers, but their use has been shown in a limited number of studies to be detrimental to sound localization in a horizontal plane. [10][11][12][13][14][15][16] As well as investigating the effect of the acoustic features of backup alarm signals on localizing them, it is also important to study the effect of different HPDs, including those that incorporate either passive or electronic augmentations (see Casali [17] for a review), to localize backup alarm signals. This should help industrial safety professionals select HPDs for their workers when localization is an important task and thus a comparison of a wide variety of passive and electronic HPDs was a major focus of the research discussed in this article.…”

Section: Introduction and Literature Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

The challenge of localizing vehicle backup alarms: Effects of passive and electronic hearing protectors, ambient noise level, and backup alarm spectral content

Alali

Casali

2011

Noise Health

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A human factors experiment employed a hemi-anechoic sound field in which listeners were required to localize a vehicular backup alarm warning signal (both a standard and a frequency-augmented alarm) in 360-degrees azimuth in pink noise of 60 dBA and 90 dBA. Measures of localization performance included: (1) percentage correct localization, (2) percentage of right--left localization errors, (3) percentage of front-rear localization errors, and (4) localization absolute deviation in degrees from the alarm's actual location. In summary, the data demonstrated that, with some exceptions, normal hearing listeners' ability to localize the backup alarm in 360-degrees azimuth did not improve when wearing augmented hearing protectors (including dichotic sound transmission earmuffs, flat attenuation earplugs, and level-dependent earplugs) as compared to when wearing conventional passive earmuffs or earplugs of the foam or flanged types. Exceptions were that in the 90 dBA pink noise, the flat attenuation earplug yielded significantly better accuracy than the polyurethane foam earplug and both the dichotic and the custom-made diotic electronic sound transmission earmuffs. However, the flat attenuation earplug showed no benefit over the standard pre-molded earplug, the arc earplug, and the passive earmuff. Confusions of front-rear alarm directions were most significant in the 90 dBA noise condition, wherein two types of triple-flanged earplugs exhibited significantly fewer front-rear confusions than either of the electronic muffs. On all measures, the diotic sound transmission earmuff resulted in the poorest localization of any of the protectors due to the fact that its single-microphone design did not enable interaural cues to be heard. Localization was consistently more degraded in the 90 dBA pink noise as compared with the relatively quiet condition of the 60 dBA pink noise. A frequency-augmented backup alarm, which incorporated 400 Hz and 4000 Hz components to exploit the benefits of interaural phase and intensity cues respectively, slightly but significantly improved localization compared with the standard, more narrow-bandwidth backup alarm, and these results have implications for the updating of backup alarm standards.

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Section: Introduction and Literature Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

The challenge of localizing vehicle backup alarms: Effects of passive and electronic hearing protectors, ambient noise level, and backup alarm spectral content

Alali

Casali

2011

Noise Health

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“…Odbiór dźwięko-wego sygnału bezpieczeństwa jest możliwy jednak wtedy, gdy zostanie on odpowiednio zaprojektowany [4][5][6][7]. Należy także mieć na uwadze, że praca w hałasie o wysokim poziomie często wymaga stosowania ochronników słuchu, co może jeszcze bardziej pogorszyć odbieranie dźwiękowego sygnału bezpieczeństwa [4,[8][9][10][11].…”

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Assessment of the audibility area of auditory danger signals produced by industrial truck

Młyński¹,

Kozłowski²

2015

Med Pr

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“…Both hearing aids and hearing protective devices are reported to degrade sound localization performance ͑Noble et al., 1990;Abel and Armstrong, 1993;Byrne et al, 1998, Vause andGrantham, 1999;Bolia et al, 2001;Brungart et al, 2004;Simpson et al, 2005. Interaural time and level difference cues are the primary cues used for localization of sound in the horizontal plane ͑Blauert, 1997͒.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Previous studies have shown that many HPDs degrade users' localization ability and affect the acceptability of HPDs ͑Noble et al, 1990;Abel and Armstrong, 1993;Vause and Grantham, 1999;Bolia et al, 2001;Brungart et al, 2004;Simpson et al, 2005͒. A literature search revealed that only a few research studies have examined the effect of directional microphones on hearing aid users' localization performance.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of in-the-ear microphone directionality on sound direction identification

Chung

Neuman

Higgins

2008

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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As advanced signal processing algorithms have been proposed to enhance hearing protective device (HPD) performance, it is important to determine how directional microphones might affect the localization ability of users and whether they might cause safety hazards. The effect of in-the-ear microphone directivity was assessed by measuring sound source identification of speech in the horizontal plane. Recordings of speech in quiet and in noise were made with Knowles Electronic Manikin for Acoustic Research wearing bilateral in-the-ear hearing aids with microphones having adjustable directivity (omnidirectional, cardioid, hypercardioid, supercardioid). Signals were generated from 16 locations in a circular array. Sound direction identification performance of eight normal hearing listeners and eight hearing-impaired listeners revealed that directional microphones did not degrade localization performance and actually reduced the front-back and lateral localization errors made when listening through omnidirectional microphones. The summed rms speech level for the signals entering the two ears appear to serve as a cue for making front-back discriminations when using directional microphones in the experimental setting. The results of this study show that the use of matched directional microphones when worn bilaterally do not have a negative effect on the ability to localize speech in the horizontal plane and may thus be useful in HPD design.

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Effects of Hearing Protectors on Auditory Localization in Azimuth and Elevation

Cited by 27 publications

References 18 publications

The challenge of localizing vehicle backup alarms: Effects of passive and electronic hearing protectors, ambient noise level, and backup alarm spectral content

The challenge of localizing vehicle backup alarms: Effects of passive and electronic hearing protectors, ambient noise level, and backup alarm spectral content

Assessment of the audibility area of auditory danger signals produced by industrial truck

Effects of in-the-ear microphone directionality on sound direction identification

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