• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.22-27
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• 2020

Auditory stimuli are commonly used in various electroencephalogram experiments, also in EEG-based brain-computer interface systems. However, using conventional earphones that blocks the ear canal attenuates or even blocks external environmental sound which might cause loss of crucial information from surroundings. Instead, bone-conductive earphones are able to deliver sound through vibration without blocking the ear canal. To investigate the feasibility of the bone-conductive earphones for auditory-stimuli based experiments, we compared N100 event-related potential features as well the event-related spectral perturbation and inter-trial coherence of auditory steady-state response between conventional and bone-conductive earphones. The results showed no significant differences between bone conduction and conventional earphones regardless of distinct sound pressures. This result shows that bone conductive earphones can be used for auditory experiments when the environmental sound is crucial to the user.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.207-214
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• 2011

Human auditory acuity decreases naturally due to aging. But recently cases of impaired hearing at a young age are increasing greatly. The biggest reason for such an increase of population with impaired hearing is popularization of various kinds of portable multimedia appliances. Many studies on impaired hearing due to noises caused by the earphone and headphone are being made, but there are few studies on noise-impaired hearing caused directly by mobile phone communication. Based on a precedent inquiry, this study proposes a technique for preventing noise-impaired hearing applying to an active noise reduction technique onto bone conduction speaker. This technique is a method for reducing noises by antiphase oscillation through bone conduction speaker with ambient noises. If the proposed system is applied, the noise level that is actually introduced to audition decreases by more than 12 dB, and such a decreased amount of sound volume fundamentally prevents the factors of noise-caused hearing difficulty due to mobile phone communication. Sensibility test results showed that adequate communication was possible even in such a situation where communication volume was decreased like this.