THE LOMBARD EFFECT IN OPEN PLAN OFFICES

摘要

The methods described in BS 3382-3:2012 for measuring the room acoustic parameters of open plan offices assume the sound power spectrum for normal speech. This is equivalent to an A-weighted sound pressure level of 57.4dB at a distance of 1m, for an omni-directional source or 59.5dB for a directional source. However, there may be situations in which occupant speech level will be higher than this because of the Lombard effect i.e. occupants raise their voice in response to the background level in order to enhance its audibility. This situation is most likely to arise in open plan offices where there is a relatively high density of people talking as this will result in a higher background noise level.