Noise Reduction Measures of Noisy Kitchen Devices and Evidence of their Improvement by an Objective Analysis of Spontaneous EEG Measurements

摘要

In modern life, influence of noise becomes more and more important. Especially at home, Europeans desire a quieter kitchen. In general small, electromotive-driven appliances and in particular blenders can generate inconvenient home noise emission. Noise excitations of these devices were diagnosed experimentally. On this, constructions were applied to modify noise emission. The modified noise emissions were compared in terms of sound power level and psychoacoustic parameters like loudness, sharpness and roughness. In order to analyze objectively the psycho-physiological stress caused by these noises, a spontaneous EEG experiment was conducted. "Original noise" of the device and modified "optimized noises" were taken as experimental stimuli. Impact of the noises on psycho-physiological stress of experimental subjects (n = 20) were measured by spontaneous EEG. Through power density distribution, evidence on significant differences between "original noise" and "optimized noises" were found. The power density distributions of the "optimized noises" as compared to the "original noise" come closer to the distribution when subjects are relaxed-awake. This showed that the modifications have been successful as measured through an objective mean.