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Wind Noise: Its Effect On Human Audition, William Roy Nelson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

An examination was made of the acoustic characteristics of wind turbulence generated noise in a car traveling at 70 mph over smoothly paved highway with the driver's window down. The overall noise level was found to be at 112 dB SPL with the predominance of energy in the low frequencies. The study was concerned with the effects of such noise on human audition in terms of temporary threshold shift.

Twenty normal hearing young adults were exposed to a tape recording of wind noise for 15 minutes. Post-exposure auditory thresholds at seven discreet frequencies were compared to pre-exposure auditory thresholds at …