WANG: Hello, and welcome to this YouTube live event sponsored by the Acoustical Society of America
or the ASA. My name is Lily Wang and I'm a professor in the
Durham School of Architectural Engineering Construction and an
associate dean in the college of Engineering at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. I'm also the current ASA a
president-elect and I am excited to be the moderator for today's event. It is
April 25th 2018 and we are here to support International Noise Awareness
Day or INAD 2018. INAD was founded in 1996 by the Center of Hearing and Communication
with a goal to raise awareness of the effects of noise on the
health and welfare of individuals and populations worldwide and this year ASA
is excited to be engaging in INAD for the first time. We've been campaigning
over the past month through our website exploresound.org and social media
outlets to grow support for INAD, encouraging people to measure noise at
restaurants with the free iOS app SoundPrint, to watch the recently released
film "In Pursuit of Silence," and to submit questions about noise that we are happy
to address today during this two-hour long YouTube live event. I'm thrilled to
introduce our panel of five experts who will be discussing all things related to
noise today. First let me welcome Dr. Arlene Bronzaft, who is a Professor
Emeritus of the City University of New York and serves on the board of GrowNYC
overseeing its noise activities. Dr. Bronzaft is a researcher, writer and
consultant on the adverse effects of noise on mental and physical health.
Arlene thanks for joining us today. BRONZAFT: Thanks for hosting us today. I am very pleased
to be here today. I was at the first INAD when Nancy and I work to put this together at
the Center for hearing and Communications and so it's delightful
that we're still pursuing the need for a lower decibel level
in our world. I don't know if I should have said "delightful" maybe we should
have accomplished it, but at least we're moving in the right direction. So I am, I
do research, I write, I lecture on the effects of noise, particularly on the
effects of noise on children's learning. WANG: Excellent, Thank you so much. Next we have
Bennett Brooks who is president of Brooks Acoustics Corporation, a
consulting firm that has provided engineering, design, and testing services
in the fields of environmental and industrial noise control, architectural
acoustics, and quiet product design. Welcome Bennett.
BROOKS: Thank you Lily. Glad to be here at this International Noise Awareness Day video conference. Welcome to everyone who's here.
WANG: Thanks. I'm also pleased to introduce William Murphy, a Captain in the United States Public Health Service
Commissioned Corps and Coordinator for the hearing loss prevention cross-sector
for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. He's an
active member of the National Hearing Conservation Association and currently
the chair of the ASA's Technical Committee for Noise so thanks for being
here Bill. MURPHY: thanks for having me I'm broadcasting from my car for those who
are wondering why he's sitting in his car it's because I'm at an Air Force
Base attending a meeting for the Hearing Center of Excellence talking about noise
issues for auditory and vestibular research that's being conducted within
the Department of Defense. I work at NIOSH in Cincinnati at
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base today and it's really a pleasure to be a part
of this and to participate in this activity. WANG: Thanks Bob. the next panelist is
Dr. Peggy Nelson, a professor of audiology and the Department of
Speech-Language Hearing Sciences at the University of Minnesota. She's currently
the founding director of the University of Minnesota's new Center for Applied and
Translational Sensory Science where she oversees interdisciplinary research and
vision, hearing, balance, and tinnitus. Welcome, Peggy. NELSON: Thanks, it's really
exciting to be here today. This is very 21st century, very fun and it's good to
be on the panel with all of you. Thanks very much. WANG: Thank you, and our fifth
finalist is Dr. Brigitta Schulte-Fortkamp, a professor at the Technical
University of Berlin in Germany. Her research focuses on supportive acoustic
environments and sound scapes and currently she is serving as Vice
President of the European Acoustics Association and as project leader in
establishing an international standard on measurements of soundscape so thanks
for being here being here Brigitta. SCHULTE-FORTKAMP: Hi Lily, thank you so much to invite
me to this panel and I'm very happy to join this panel and I would like to say
that I introduced the Noise Awareness Day to Germany twenty years ago and so
we are celebrating together with you, with us here, the Noise Awareness Day in
Germany. WANG: Wonderful, thank you very much. So for the next two hours we're going to try
to address many of the questions that have been submitted by the public over
the past month and all of you who are tuned in to this live event you are also
welcome to submit questions and comments through the chat box on our YouTube page
and we'll do our best to accommodate as many of those as possible. The course of
our discussion is expected to follow this outlines. So we're planning to try
to cover a little bit on each of these topics. First what is noise? Talking about
noise sources, causes noise, etc. Secondly, why is noise bad, why can it be bad, and
what are some of the adverse impacts of noise that we know about. Third, what have
we been doing about noise? Like to hear about some of the successful actions
that have been taken to lessen impacts of noise and Fourthly, we'd like to talk about
noise and technology. So, to start with the first question, which is what is
noise, what are some noise sources and causes of noise that all of us in communities
should become more aware of. I'd like to ask each of our panelists to share their
own perspectives on this question. And we didn't plan on who was going to answer
first so, who would like to start us off? BRONZAFT: I'll start. WANG: Thank you. BRONZAFT: I used to define noise, I'm a psychologist, as
unwanted, uncontrollable, unpredictable sound, but I'm changing that definition
thanks to my 12 year old grandson, who lives near aircraft noise and it is
wakened by aircraft noise early in the morning practically every day. When I
asked him what is noise, he said harmful sounds and that's the point which I
think we should define noise, "noise, while it is unpredictable, uncontrollable, an
unpredictable sound, I think in 2018 we now know that that sound can be harmful
to our ears, to our body, and to our mind. WANG: Thank You Arlene. Somebody else be
willing to share their perspectives on what noise is, and maybe the sources of
noise that you are most familiar with and that you've had an opportunity to
study. BROOKS: sure I can jump in. Thank You Lily. The classical legal definition of noise
is unwanted sound. So that brings up the question as to who wants it or who
doesn't want it and so that that can broaden it out quite a bit.
Perhaps we should include the broader definition that Arlene just mentioned
which is a harmful sound. Again, who is it harming? There are many examples of
sounds that we don't like in most cases, but it may depend on the context
whether we would think of it as something like noise which would be a
waste of the energy that's in the sound or it might be something useful to us. A
quick example would be car horns and traffic in in a city. People beeping
horns. Most people don't like car horns most of the time however if if you
happen to be a person who's crossing the street and looking the other way when a
car is coming and the car horn beeps at you, it might save your life so that
in that sense that sound might be noise to some people who aren't
involved in that situation, but to you, it may be a
lifesaver. It may be a very useful resource ,so I think it depends on the
context. We need to be very careful about the context and that I know Brigitta can
weigh in on that because that is part of the sound scape technique and
concept. If we look at sound in the context, certainly if it's causing harm,
if it's causing hearing damage, if it's causing health effects, yes that is
harmful. We call that noise without question.
In other cases, something happening in an urban environment from, you know a
situational context then it may be considered happy by some people. People
like to go out to cafes in the evening. That may be noise to someone. It could be
harming them even and so as it's noise to them certainly, but is it noise to the
other people who are enjoying it and then the sounds of nature that could be
very soothing and very serene for people. Other times it might not be so it, I
think it depends very much on the context. SCHULTE-FORTKAMP: Can I step in and continue here?
Thank you very much Bennett for all this perspective you gave and I think it's, to
me it's very important what you said and also was Arlene was saying because there
is one thing we have to consider that we have to see the noise, the reaction to
say, sound pressure level, or let us call noise or sound, unwanted sound it's very
much related to the person itself. It's kind of the context, it's kind of the
situation the person was educated, it's kind of the situation a person is living
in, and it's kind of also when we only think about the sounds or that we will be
noises, it's related to their functions. This is really what you said before. It's
always depending on context and if you go to consider this,
eventually by research. So we have always to define what kind of, you know, focus we
are setting to discuss this very important issue. NELSON: If I could jump in.
I just would want people to remember for people who have hearing loss or for people who
are unfamiliar with a language or for children who are basically learning
everything, there's more noise than the rest of us think in the environment so
noise is more intrusive at lower levels, any any background sounds whether
it's wanted or unwanted are more intrusive at lower levels than for the
general adult population working in our own language. So I hope everyone
remembers that any time we're dealing with someone with hearing loss or other
special needs, we should expect that the noise is having double the effect
that it's having on those of us with normal hearing and with good language skills.
MURPHY: The work that I do in noise and occupational noise exposure research
and hearing conservation, hearing loss prevention with regards to occupational
exposures, we look at things we don't really get too worried until the noise
levels exceed 85 decibels sound pressure level for an eight-hour time-weighted
average. What I do in terms of some of my areas of research, it involves impulse
noise and so we're looking at levels of anything over 140,
upwards of 170. Those are for gun fire noise and the like. I'm at a conference
here today at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and we had a presentation on
the noise produced by a howitzer when it's being fired and the levels for that
can be 180-185 dB. These can make for a very
bad day very quickly for someone's ears and cause permanent hearing loss. It can
definitely cause temporary hearing loss to a person and those are the kinds of
noises that I worry about. Then we also have to worry about
things from what causes sleep disruption and that's what Arlene brought up. You
know the noise levels that it takes to wake me from sleep is very low, you
know, 45, 50, 60 decibels can wake me up. That disrupts your sleep. That can affect
adversely your cardiovascular effects. So that's another aspect of of where noise
comes into play and perhaps the hazardous issues and then there's other
things when you go into the psychology of hearing and how we do, you know our
auditory mp3 personal stereos. Those have noise that's interjected at very low low
levels at the lowest levels to improve the auditory sound of your mp3 player,
your iPod, or your Android device. WANG: Thanks to all of you for sharing
your initial perspectives on it. We as a group, you know when we're planning this
YouTube live event we actually brainstormed about a number of different
kinds of sources that are apparent in everyday life and I did see that there
was a comment from the public that was also asking, like you know, when will
awareness of noise and noise pollution become as common as nowadays how we feel
about smoking and smoking cessation. So I'd like to maybe have you all talk
about some of the sources of noise that you've worked with most commonly or that
you're aware of and maybe say some things about that. So Bennett, would you
like to start answering with that one. BROOKS: Sure, thanks Lily. We, in our work, we do a lot of work in the practical realm
where we build things. I'm an engineer so we build stuff.
And to Peggy's point, over the last decade we've built about 60 or 70 schools and
one of the primary things that is important is the low level of noise in
the classroom and that would be the unwanted
sound from the from the mechanical system, primarily it could be
transportation outside as Arlene mentioned from airplanes or trains or
highways. But we want to keep the level of sound in the classroom very low
below 35 A-weighted decibels or lower, which is the standard ANSI S12.60
People can get a free copy of that from the acoustical society's website, if
you go to the Standards tab and again if you have a very low levels of sound they
will interfere with speech communication which is so important in our schools and
particularly more so as Peggy mentioned for those with any hearing impairment or
English as a Second Language, for example, in our school. This can be something
that we work on and we work on it very diligently so that the schools that we
build can meet the acoustical standards for our kids. WANG: Let me follow up on what
you're saying though, Bennett, what are the sources of noise that might impact
people in classrooms and like what are those sources, rather, you know I want to
try to keep this at this first part talking about growing awareness of types
of noise sources that are impacting communities. BENNETT: Anyone who might go stand in a school for example
might notice that if they have the old style window ventilators, that have a fan
in them and have perhaps an air conditioning compressor in them. That can
be very loud. I measured one, one time that was 70 DBA and the kid was sitting
three feet away from it and I'm trying to figure out how this kid in fourth
grade is engaged at all. I mean it was, that's a problem. So it's
the HVAC, heating ventilating air conditioning systems or we call them
mechanical systems in buildings, which cause a lot of noise and people will
notice that in public spaces also restaurants schools auditoria and then
you have transportation which is a primary source outside.
Planes, trains, automobiles, but also it can get inside the building if the
building envelope is not properly insulated from outside sounds and noise.
I could thank you would you like to add it to any of that yes it's a 40 we're
having a little bit of a hard time hearing you Arlene let's see the train
was intruding on classroom time the train went by every four and a half
minutes and it was over 80 decibels in the classroom the teacher had to stop
teaching so teaching can't go on she lost 11 percent of classroom time and
when we did our study and we compared children exposed to the sound levels of
the trains compared to the children on the white side of the building by the
sixth grade they were nearly a year behind in learning and yes we had to
turn to acoustical improvement to lessen the decibel level the Transit Authority
quieted the tracks adjacent to the school the Board of Ed put in acoustical
ceilings and then when we came back a few years later when it was less noisy
the children on both sides of the building were reading at the same level
so it's not just the learning that I've got intruded upon it was also the
teaching and then I looked at the acoustics within the classroom I agree
in terms of the ventilation as was just stated but even the doors when children
were passing from one classroom to another and one class was still in
session you could still hear the children going back and forth so the
things are getting better the FAA has spent several hundred million dollars to
quiet schools that are exposed to aircraft noise so they're much more
cognizant of it now than we were and please to note that we are talking about
it doing something about it particularly when you the first study
was done 40 years ago so thank you thank you for bein sure Brigitta can you speak
more on other noise sources that are and this sort of soundscapes that you have
studied yeah I like to to mention the road traffic noise this is one thing and
at the same time perhaps the way what noise which which may bother people it's
the same in the same area and the issue is now not only to to measure the sound
level or the noise level but to find something that people give a bit better
life quality in that kind of areas and this is a kind of our research that we
try to find solutions related to places where we do the research for instance so
meaning please let us collect what people think about an area what they
think about the noise in this area and also what they think about which are the
good sounds in this area and how do they want to tell you to manage their daily
life living in this area and so we have done lots of research in
this regard and also when you mentioned soundscape and soundscape let me say
this for the first moment only from this point of you saying the major issue in
soundscape is to lets people participate in changings that are foreseen by this
community or etc even if to do measurements together with people at one
place collecting data are collecting the sound level this is one major important
thing but on the other hand to also to get their impression and perception of
what is happening this is also very important in finding out in a in joint
say communication say having a platform for communication on these topics
absolute to change areas and give some inputs also in urban planning this is
this would be another topic what you should consider concerning that quality
sure bill can you comment about as you know having been technical
chair of the Technical Committee on noise in the acoustical Society of
America I know that we've had many sessions on assorted sources of noise
can you comment more broadly on other sources of noise that we should be aware
of this bill muted he may not be connected right at this moment
sorry there's a recent book that has a very short answer to your question by
Gary Keizer it's called the unwanted sound of everything we want all the
things that we want we want easy transportation we want comfortable
buildings we want all kinds of mechanized things we want we want
entertainment for ourselves we want to carry it along in our phones all these
things can be considered noise they can be harmful to us they can be harmful to
the people around us depending on the context of course so a lot of it is part
of modern society so when you think of any type of thing that is convenient for
you it could be causing noise so the question is how do you use it how do the
people around you react to it and try to
use it in a more friendly or useful way thanks Bennett for that Peggy I'd also
like to ask you for your insights on different sources of noise that you have
either personally experienced or had a lot of research involving that I listen
to lots of clients with hearing loss talk about their noisy environments it's
difficult for communication in vehicles in traffic and it's difficult in in
public places noisy restaurants and all and I think consume
are having some positive effect now on the future of those things restaurants
are getting raided we have this this app that we're all using and mapping out the
noise e places and consumers have been asking for that and they're really
responding positively to that so I think we all have the public has some say in
the fact that we value quiet we value ease of communication and even
though yes I totally agree Bennett we want those things that make me want all
that stuff we want the toys that make noise and we love music and sound we
want to be able to be more in control of it as some have mentioned from the
beginning it's that sense of not not being able to control it there's one
other new area that I've just gotten in and that's that the noise surrounding
sustainable energy and wind turbines and that's a really fascinating and
complicated area because of course we want clean energy and we're trying to
figure out what what we can do about the the sound environment and the sensation
of sound and infrasound around wind turbines so I'm new in that region but
I'm it's a fascinating area that we're studying and I'd be curious to hear if
there are people in the public who have comments about that as well thank you so
much yes I mean please and a grandmother I think you start with children and I
want people to realize that we now have a sound and noise module on the New York
City Department of Environmental Protection's website which teaches
children from the lower grades through high school to appreciate the good
sounds in our world and to be aware of the dangerous sounds and we won't be
able to appreciate the good sounds if the dangerous ones drown them out and I
have written a children's book listen to the raindrops which speaks about
beautiful sounds in our environment then asks everyone to lessen the noise
so that we can one and all forever hear the raindrops fall thank you for that
all right lane so now we want to transition to this topic of why can nose
be bad
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