Examination of bone-conducted transmission from sound field excitation measured by thresholds, ear-canal sound pressure, and skull vibrations
Journal article, 2007

Bone conduction (BC) relative to air conduction (AC) sound field sensitivity is here defined as the perceived difference between a sound field transmitted to the ear by BC and by AC. Previous investigations of BC-AC sound field sensitivity have used different estimation methods and report estimates that vary by up to 20 dB at some frequencies. In this study, the BC-AC sound field sensitivity was investigated by hearing threshold shifts, ear canal sound pressure measurements, and skull bone vibrations measured with an accelerometer. The vibration measurement produced valid estimates at 400 Hz and below, the threshold shifts produced valid estimates at 500 Hz and above, while the ear canal sound pressure measurements were found erroneous for estimating the BC-AC sound field sensitivity. The BC-AC sound field sensitivity is proposed, by combining the present result with others, as frequency independent at 50 to 60 dB at frequencies up to 900 Hz. At higher frequencies, it is frequency dependent with minima of 40 to 50 dB; at 2 and 8 kHz, and a maximum of 50 to 60 dB at 4 kHz. The BC-AC sound field sensitivity is the theoretical limit of maximum attenuation achievable with ordinary hearing protection devices. (c) 2007 Acoustical Society of America.

MICROPHONE

NOISE

AIR CONDUCTION

ATTENUATION

HEARING PROTECTION

Author

Sabine Reinfeldt

Chalmers, Signals and Systems, Signal Processing and Biomedical Engineering

Stefan Stenfelt

Chalmers, Signals and Systems

Tobias Good

Chalmers

Bo Håkansson

Chalmers, Signals and Systems, Signal Processing and Biomedical Engineering

Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

0001-4966 (ISSN) 1520-8524 (eISSN)

Vol. 121 3 1576-1587

Subject Categories

Medical Laboratory and Measurements Technologies

DOI

10.1121/1.2434762

More information

Latest update

9/10/2018