Marcia Jenneth Epstein, Ph.D. has once again contributed to Acoustic Bulletin with this guest blog post. We appreciate your work, Marcia! Read more about our guest blogger and find her other post here. Hearing is our ”second sense”. Phrases used in Western culture to demonstrate understanding – at least in English – are often visual: […]
Last June 24th, Daniel de la Prida defended his PhD thesis [1] at the Technical University of Madrid (Spain). His research focused on the assessment of the subjective perception both in architectural and environmental acoustics. In the following, a summary of Daniel de la Prida’s research (mostly focused on room acoustics) is given. All the […]
A vibrant soundscape in any educational context, be it within a preschool, school or university, usually means a healthy learning environment. Students engaging with their education actively often generate more sound as they enthusiastically critique, consider and explore their learning materials and communicate with their teachers and peers. To counteract this, acousticians have striven for […]
In offices, noise control should be a priority as unwanted sound causes stress. Continuously elevated stress levels are a health risk. Turku University of Applied Sciences and University of Turku have conducted the first Finnish medical study on the physiological, psychological, and performance effects of irrelevant speech. Office noise consists primarily of this kind of […]
How we perceive the sounds around us is dependent upon their inherent acoustic characteristics but also their associated meanings, context and our experience. We individuals shape the frame of reference. Exposure to unwanted, negative sounds (noise!) impacts our quality of life. Until now, our primary goal in acoustics has been to solely reduce the negative […]
“The soundscape of the average modern hospital is a cacophony of overlapping beeps, blats and pings from monitors, roaring ventilation systems, raucous bursts of conversation from visitors, patients and the nursing station, carts rumbling down hallways, televisions, phones. Sleep, essential to the healing process, is available primarily through medications. Even medicated sleep can be elusive, […]
The Nordic Acoustic Association and the Norwegian Acoustical Society invited scientists and engineers to attend the Baltic-Nordic Acoustic Meeting for 2021 this week and despite an online set-up the program consisted of keynote lectures, invited and contributed papers in structured parallel sessions. Some of the really interesting presentations are described here but you can find […]
A few years ago, at the Healthcare Estates Conference in Manchester, UK John Criddle from Evelina London Children’s Hospital and Martin Jones from Art in Site had a talk about how they designed the emergency dept. with the use of illustrative and digital arts to guide, reassure and role model behaviors. Their talk was called: Taking the ‘OUCH’ out of […]
Recover in noise A recent study published in Critical Care Explorations revealed potential relationship between acoustic interruptions and worsened perceived sleep quality. One of the results was that patients were exposed to 4,861 acoustic interruptions in total during the night! The conception that critically ill patients are too ill to reflect on their sound environment […]
Teaching methods shape the classroom sound environment Teachers of today have the shared goal of maximizing student engagement whilst maintaining a controlled sound environment. This has resulted in decades of innovation in educational approaches, classroom design and acoustic standardization. When additionally considering the influence of advancements in technological tools which have further augmented the field […]