Assessing the multidimensional comfort of earplugs in virtual industrial noise environments

Type de document

Études primaires

Année de publication

2024

Langue

Anglais

Titre de la revue

Applied Ergonomics

Résumé

Earplugs’ comfort is primarily evaluated through cost-effective laboratory evaluations, yet these evaluations often inadequately capture the multidimensional comfort aspects due to design limitations that do not replicate real-world conditions. This paper introduces a novel laboratory method for comprehensive assessment of the multidimensional comfort aspects of earplugs, combining questionnaire-based evaluations and objective perceptual tests within virtual industrial sound environments replicating in-situ noise exposure. Objective perceptual results confirm that the sound environment affect participants’ ability to detect alarms in a noisy environment and comprehend speech-in-noise while wearing earplugs. Subjective questionnaire results reveal that the earplugs family has an effect on the primary attributes of the acoustical, physical and functional comfort's dimension. Participants reported the physical dimension as the most important factor they take into account when evaluating earplugs’ comfort. The functional dimension was considered the second most important factor by the participants, followed by the psychological dimension, and the acoustical dimension. © 2024 The Author(s)

Mots-clés

Évaluation du confort, Comfort assessment, Évaluation du matériel, Evaluation of equipment, Earplug, Bruyance Noisiness, Détermination expérimentale, Experimental determination, Méthodologie, Methodology

Numéro de projet IRSST

n/a

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