Auditory Demonstrations II: Challenges to Speech Communication and Music Listening is a compact disc collection of auditory demonstrations that illustrate the impact of acoustical conditions and hearing loss on everyday listening situations. These audio demonstrations illustrate both the need for and the benefits of noise control efforts in a wide range of situations where good speech intelligibility is desirable. The disc was produced by the NASA Glenn Research Center Acoustical Testing Laboratory, with technical sound design and production contracted to Nelson Acoustics and studio engineering by Tequila Mockingbird Studios. The demonstrations are intended as tools with which engineers, architects, policymakers, and health care professionals may accurately and tangibly assess the true cost of communication interference due to noise and hearing loss.

In addition to the communication demonstrations, the CD includes recordings of several styles of music that have been modified to demonstrate auditory changes due to progressive noise-related hearing loss (included primarily for use in hearing conservation training programs).

Selected auditory demonstrations have been animated into entertaining video demonstrations that provide a visual mechanism for illustrating the changing technical parameters as well as the context of the communication or style of music. These animated video demonstrations are included in Animated Auditory Demonstrations II: Challenges in Speech Communication and Music Listening.

This disc is the second of two demonstration discs produced by the NASA Glenn Research Center Acoustical Testing Laboratory. The first, Auditory Demonstrations in Acoustics and Hearing Conservation, contains a series of audio demonstrations that were created to illustrate fundamental concepts in acoustics (e.g., frequency, sound level, tonal and broadband noise sources, A-weighting, octave band filtering, audiometric test frequencies, and simulated hearing loss demonstrations).

	Cooper, Beth A., David A. Nelson and Richard W. Danielson "Auditory Demonstrations II: Challenges to Speech Communication and Music Listening." Proceedings of Noise-Con 2004. Baltimore, MD. 12-14 July 2004 (.pdf file)
	View the liner notes and track list.(.pdf file)

You will need to install the free Adobe Acrobat Reader viewer software to see the documents that are in Portable Document Format (PDF file).

Please give us feedback on Auditory Demonstrations II: Challenges to Speech Communication and Music Listening. We welcome your comments, error reports, suggestions for improvement of this product, and ideas for future products you'd like to see.

Subscribe to ATL's E-mail distribution list for periodic news on hearing conservation and acoustical testing topics.