Improvement on perception of welding noise by fountain sound masking: Insights from fMRI

摘要

Sound masking has been applied to improve subjective perception of noise in recent years. This noise control technology could gain better perceptual effects on certain noises with lower cost compared with the traditional noise control technologies. However, the neural mechanisms underlying sound masking are rarely studied. In this study, 19 healthy subjects were recruited to take fMRI scanning and subjective annoyance assessments with the welding noise and the masked welding noise. The fMRI data were collected with block design paradigm for the welding noise and the masked welding noise in two different sessions respectively. Both contrast analysis of the brain activations and seed-based connectivity analysis were performed. The results showed that the noise annoyance was associated with significant brain activation in putamen and ACC but deficient functional connectivity between anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and prefrontal cortex (PFC). The sound masking led to significantly strong activations in the left superior medial frontal cortex (SMFC), left supplementary motor area (SMA), and increased functional connectivity between the SMFC and parietal lobe, which were associated with positive emotion and improved the perception of the welding noise. This study offered new insights on the underlying neural mechanisms of sound masking effects. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.