A narrowband tone damages the ear more than the same energy spread wide

Evidence

This approach to measuring the noise dose takes no account of the spectrum of the sound that is causing the noise exposure, because to do so would be difficult in practice. However, it is obvious that the effect of a pure tone at 85 dBA on the ear is going to be different from the same level spread over the full frequency range. In the former situation, there will be a large amount of energy concentrated at a particular point on the basilar membrane, and this is likely to be more damaging than the second case, in which the energy will be spread out over the full length of the membrane. — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 688

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• XREF: Builds directly on the basilar-membrane place theory of frequency coding from earlier in the chapter, and grounds the myth that concentrated spectral energy is more dangerous.
• SEED: A possible essay angle: why the equal-energy assumption in occupational noise regulation is inadequate and what a spectrally-aware standard would look like.

Related

• Concentrated spectral energy damages the ear more than broadband noise of equal level (similarity 0.93)
• A concentrated pure tone damages hearing more than broadband sound at equal level (similarity 0.91)
• Broadband noise yields better intensity discrimination than pure tones by engaging multiple frequency regions (similarity 0.81)
• Wide bandwidth noise sounds as loud as a narrower tone despite lower level (similarity 0.81)
• Broadband sounds are easier to localize than narrowband sounds (similarity 0.80)
• Any sound narrower than a critical band produces identical loudness regardless of its width. (similarity 0.80)
• Wideband sounds are louder than narrowband sounds at equal dB SPL (similarity 0.80)
• The ear sums all sound energy within a critical band into one perceived item (similarity 0.80)
• Loudness grows when sound energy spills beyond a single critical band (similarity 0.80)
• Wider bandwidth increases perceived loudness at equal sound pressure (similarity 0.79)
• Widening a sound’s bandwidth beyond one critical band raises perceived loudness at unchanged intensity. (similarity 0.79)
• Noise research shifted from hearing-loss risk to subjective annoyance (similarity 0.79)
• Loudness curves from anechoic pure tones fail on real broadband program material (similarity 0.79)
• Loudness is the summed specific loudness across critical-band rates, not the raw spectral level (similarity 0.79)
• High bass levels are safe while comparable high-frequency levels risk hearing. (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Concentrated spectral energy damages the ear more than broadband noise of equal level #corroborates (0.98) — David Howard, Jamie Angus, coustics and Psychoacoustics, 676