Investigating the effects of active noise cancelling headphones on speech intelligibility in aviation

摘要

Noise generated from aircraft engines during flight can reduce the speech intelligibility for both pilots and their passengers. For pilots, flight performance and safety rely on them clearly hearing instructions from both other crew members as well as air traffic control. Passengers also need to clearly hear on-board announcements such as the preflight safety brief. The benefits of headphones that incorporate active noise control have been demonstrated in military aviation operation. In this paper, we discuss the techniques developed in a series of research studies to investigate the use of active noise control headphones in non-military aviation situations. In particular these studies have sought to investigate the effects of active noise cancelling headphones on the intelligibility of speech generated outside the headphones, for example the preflight safety briefing for the passengers. The results suggest that the use of active noise cancelling headphones can minimize mis-communication errors in both general aviation and commercial operations. This paper will discuss the methodology adopted and summarise the outcomes.