LTC Lorraine Babeu
As the CAE is new to the Army’s inventory of personal protective equipment, there has been little research done by the US Army to determine the effects of the device on human performance such as the ability to recognize environmental sounds at a distance. Traditional earplugs reduce the frequency and intensity of sound in relatively uniform fashion and that makes it difficult to recognize sounds. Because the yellow side of the CAE attenuates unevenly across frequencies, it is possible that distortion of the sound may have a bigger impact on the user’s ability to recognize a sound in an open field. The purpose of the study is to determine the effect of level dependent hearing protection, when compared to traditional hearing protection, on the user’s ability to recognize sounds at various distances. Twenty-three individuals with auditory thresholds that met the Army’s definition of H-1 per AR 40-501 Standards of Fitness served as subjects for this project. Subjects were asked to identify sounds that were presented at each distance of 50, 100, 200 and 300 meters from the listener.