Speech Understanding in Noise in the Bison Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence (C3I) Mobile Command Post (MCP)

摘要

This experiment compared subjects' ability to understand a series of messages presented either over a pair of loudspeakers or a headset used in the Bison Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence (C3I) mobile command post (MCP). The messages were presented in quiet or in a background of noise heard in a light armoured vehicle driving along a highway, speech babble noise or both, at signal-to-noise ratios that were close to zero. The intention was to generate a baseline of results against which to judge divided auditory attention which entails the overlapping of messages from the various sources. Ten normal-hearing males were tested individually while seated in a mock up of the vehicle. The messages they heard were comprised of a Call Sign, Colour and Number combination. They were instructed to respond only to their assigned Call Sign which occurred with a 25% probability. While the percentage of hits exceeded 85% under all conditions, subjects performed significantly more poorly in the presence of the vehicle noise and when messages were presented over the loudspeaker. The results demonstrated that Signals Operators working in the Bison C3I MCP should have no difficulty with communication, as long as messages from various sources do not overlap and the speech and noise levels are similar.