Office of Sponsored Programs

It is well documented that repeated exposure to loud noise can have lasting physical and psychological effects and is a leading cause of hearing loss. This study is a single-group repeated measures design that will assess the attenuation of three different styles of HPDs. The purpose of this study is to compare both (1) the effectiveness of each hearing protective device as well as (2) compare the methods used to measure attenuation. Of the three hearing protective devices, one device is a newly developed device that utilizes metal to attenuate sound as opposed to foam or silicon. The two methods used to measure attenuation are (1) real-ear attenuation threshold (REAT) measures and (2) microphone-in-real-ear (MIRE) measures. Twenty participants of mixed gender and age will be recruited. The following exclusion criterion is utilized: hearing sensitivity within the normal range (>25 dB HL), no history of noise exposure, nor any known outer/middle ear abnormalities.