Military training noise and health - methodological in issues research

摘要

The two main functions of the human auditory system are to understand speech and to extract useful information about the external environment from acoustic signals present. Excessive noise can mask wanted speech and other desired signals which, depending on the noise level and other characteristics, can lead to breakdowns in communications or information processing or may be overcome by increased talker and listener effort and repeated messages. Excessive noise can also contribute unwanted information of no intrinsic value to the listener but which must nevertheless by fully appraised before being discarded. The appraisal of useless information occupies valuable neural processing capacity which could be better put to other uses.