Effects of Noise Exposure on Whole-Body Vibration Perception Threshold

摘要

Although several experiments on whole-body vibration perception thresholds have so far been conducted in the world, no experiment on those under the conditions of noise exposure has been done. It is important to know the vibration perception thresholds of people who are exposed to noise because many vibration sources cause noises simultaneously. An experiment was performed to examine the effects of noise exposure on whole-body vibration perception thresholds. Ten subjects sitting on a chair fixed on a vertical vibration table were requested to adjust the vibration level to detect the threshold. Four sinusoidal vibrations and a random vibration were used as test stimuli, and 10 dB step random noises were presented simultaneously for each vibration stimulus. It is found that the thresholds increase with the noise exposure levels. This means that the sensitivity to whole-body vibration decreases as noise exposure increases. Although the reason for this result is unascertained, the interaction between the auditory sensation and the vibration sensation at the same frequencies is suggested.