engleski

Vocoergonomics

Occupational voice disorders became a major field of interest from medical, social and economic point of view. Special attention is given to investigation of environmental and ergonomic aspects of occupational voice, so the term vocoergonomics surely will become significant. Although the title of the paper depicts very broad area of items, the influence of only few of them are discussed, and these are reverberation time, background noise and loudness level of a sound source (human voice) in relation to speech intelligibility. The study was based on simulation of the ordinary classroom with dimensions 7x12x3 m done in well-known acoustical program EASE. In the series of simulations there were three environments used - (1) acoustically untreated classroom (plain walls and ceiling, parquet floor, ordinary windows and about 2/3 of floor area occupied with pupils sitting on wooden chairs behind tables), (2) classroom with acoustical ceiling made of simple mineral wool panels and (3) acoustically treated room (lowered noise level). It was demonstrated that architectural-acoustic designs of the working places have significant impact on RASTI and also on vocal functioning of the professional voice users. Due to inadequate room conditions the demands for vocal loudness are greater. In a long run, this hyperfunction of the vocal apparatus may turn into voice disorders and cause laryngeal pathology.

vocoergonomics ; professional voice users ; occupational voice disorders ; environmental working conditions ; room acoustics ; RASTI (RApid Speech Transmission Index)

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