Management and Organizational Studies 3344A/B Chapter Notes - Chapter 5: Ear Protection, Logarithmic Scale, Sensorineural Hearing Loss

• School: Western University
• Department: Management and Organizational Studies
• Course: Management and Organizational Studies 3344A/B
• Professor: Tim Hill

Document Summary

Physical agents: sources of energy that may cause injury or disease noise, radiation, extreme temperature. We do not hear everything in a nice, neat way the human ear hears significantly different than dogs, etc. Just because we cannot hear the sound does not mean that it is not present & possibly causing hearing damage. Standards for measurement of noise: decibel measured on a logarithmic scale, 83db twice as loud as. Small differences in numbers can translate into vary large actual differences in loudness. Human hearing response is conditional on 3 characteristics: frequency, duration and loudness. Certain frequencies in a noise that is made up of variety of frequencies can be extra-loud, thus damaging without being noticed even within human range. Loud noise of very short duration (gunshot) is perceived to be quieter than the same sound level heard for a longer duration. Short duration noise is referred to impact/impulse noise both short and long can be damaging.