Search

Augmented or enhanced hearing protection devices (HPDs), as contrasted with conventional HPDs, which attenuate noise strictly through static, passive means, have proliferated in the past decade. These advancements in HPDs are generally delineated into passive (non-powered) and active (powered electronic) designs. While passive augmentations are reviewed in a parallel paper elsewhere in this issue, active augmentations include various analog and digital circuits for achieving electronic phase cancellation of noise; electronic modulated sound transmission circuits, which amplify a passband of ambient sound and transmit it through the HPD (ceasing to amplify at a pre-determined noise level); and tactical communications and protection systems (TCAPS), which may include any of the aforementioned electronic elements plus microphone/receiver communications elements. The intended benefits of electronic augmented HPDs, some of which are realized in practice and others not, include more natural hearing for the user, improved speech communications and signal detection, reduced noise-induced annoyance, improved military tactics, stealth and gunfire protection, and provision of protection that is somewhat tailored for the user's needs, noise exposure, and/or job requirements. This paper provides a technical overview of active augmented HPDs that were available or have been prototyped circa early-2010. In some cases, no empirical research on the augmentations and their performance was available in the research literature; in these cases, this review relied on patents, corporate literature, and/or the author's experience. For other technologies, a limited amount of empirical, operational performance research was available and it is covered herein. Finally, in view that at the juncture of this article the United States (U.S.) Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was in the process of promulgating a comprehensive new federal law to govern the testing and labeling of hearing protectors of various types, those elements of the proposed law pertaining to specific augmentation technologies are mentioned herein, along with that proposed law's cited ANSI standards, as well as ISO standards that address hearing protector attenuation testing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An experiment was conducted wherein masked thresholds (using ascending method of limits) for a backup alarm were obtained in pink and red noise at 85 and 100 dBA for 12 participants immersed in a probability monitoring task and wearing a conventional passive hearing protection device (HPD, an earmuff or a foam earplug), an active noise reduction (ANR) headset, or no HPD at all (only in 85 dBA noise). Results revealed statistically significant between-HPD differences in red noise (from 2.3 to 3.1 dB) and in the 100-dBA noise level (from 2.6 to 4.3 dB). An additional finding, which corroborates other studies using different protocols, was that masked thresholds in 85-dBA noise were significantly lower (from 3.2 to 4.4 dB) for the occluded conditions (wearing an HPD) than for the open-ear (unoccluded) condition. This result refutes the belief among many normal-hearing workers that the use of HPDs in relatively low levels of noise compromises their ability to hear necessary workplace sounds. Actual or potential applications of this research include (a) the selection of appropriate HPDs for low-frequency-biased noise exposures wherein signal detection is important and (b) gaining insight into the appropriateness of ANR-based HPDs for certain industrial noise environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]