• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.423-429
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• 2013

The present study aimed to find the most sensitive placement of the skull to perceive speech through the bone vibrator in various protection methods while being exposed to noise. Twenty young normal-hearing adults (10 male and 10 female) participated in the study. As stimulus, Korean spondee words were presented via one of five skull locations (i.e., jaw angle, condyle, temple, mastoid, and vertex), while the participants wore one of four protection methods (i.e., ear form, ear plug, ear muff, and ear form and muff together) against white noise in one of four noise directions (i.e., 0, 90, 180, 270 degrees). The results showed: 1) there was a significant difference among the five skull locations with condyle being the most sensitive placement; 2) there was a significant difference among the four protection methods, with the ear form plus ear muff condition (or dual protection) providing the lowest threshold; 3) when exposed to noise from 90 degrees, the significantly lowest threshold was found; 4) there was no significant difference in results by gender. The pattern of results suggests that the communicative condition via the condyle bone conduction and the dual protection of the air conduction under any noise direction might be ideal for preventing noise-induced hearing loss, although further studies should be undertaken in this area.