The Impact of Hearing Protection on Sound Localization and Orienting Behavior
Abstract
The effect of hearing protection devices (HPDs) on sound localization was examined in the context of an auditory- cued visual search task. Participants were required to locate and identify a visual target in a field of 5, 20, or 50 visual distractors randomly distributed on the interior surface of a sphere. Four HPD conditions were examined: earplugs, earmuffs, both earplugs and earmuffs simultaneously, and no hearing protection. There was also a control condition in which no auditory cue was provided. A repeated measures analysis of variance revealed significant main effects of HPD for both search time and head motion data, indicating that the degree to which localization is disrupted by HPDs varies with the type of device worn. When both earplugs and earmuffs are worn simultaneously, search times and head motion are more similar to those found when no auditory cue is provided than when either earplugs or earmuffs alone are worn, suggesting that sound localization cues are so severely disrupted by double hearing protection that the listener can recover little or no information regarding the direction of sound source origin. Potential applications of this research include high-noise military, aerospace, and industrial settings in which HPDs are necessary but wearing double protection may compromise safety and/or performance.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 01, 2005
- Accession Number
- ADA438407
Entities
People
- Brian D. Simpson
- Douglas S. Brungart
- Richard L. McKinley
- Robert S. Bolia
Organizations
- Air Force Research Laboratory