Abstract
Hearing loss in the United States (US) between the ages of 20–69 years old is increasing at an alarming rate and the growth rate of the hearing aid industry is increasing rapidly. These days, many people depend on hearing aids for their hearing effectiveness; therefore, early intervention in hearing protection and hearing loss prevention should not be underrated. Hence, listener’s clarification between signal comprehension in noise (SCN) and tiredness in background noise is important to assist the younger generation to protect their hearing. In light of this, an empirical laboratory study was conducted to determine the differences between signal comprehension in noise and an acceptable noise level (ANL). Thirty students participated in the study with ages ranging from 19 to 44 years old. Babble noise was used as the background noise, while comedian speech was used as the signal. Findings show that the background noise level accepted during an ANL task was 8% higher than the background noise level accepted during SCN. Results further revealed no statistically significant difference between listener’s ANL and SCN (P = 0.0609). Additionally, findings reveal no statistically significant differences of the effect that the background noise level posed on both ANL and SNC. However, listeners were more sensitive toward signal intensity during SCN task than during ANL task. This could be because ANL only measures listener’s willingness to work in noisy conditions while SCN task measures listener ability to seek meaning out of a signal presented in noisy conditions. Findings from this study could be used to assist listeners who are in the habit of setting their music listening volume at high levels while studying.
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The author would like to acknowledge the assistance rendered by Ms. Precious Fasanya and Prof. Roy Evan for their valuable contributions in this study.
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Fasanya, B.K. (2020). Human Listener’s Misperception Between Signal Comprehension in Noise and Noise Acceptability. In: Goonetilleke, R., Karwowski, W. (eds) Advances in Physical Ergonomics and Human Factors. AHFE 2019. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 967. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20142-5_40
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