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A critical load for nocturnal high‐density road traffic noise
Author(s) -
Griefahn Barbara
Publication year - 1986
Publication title -
american journal of industrial medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.7
H-Index - 104
eISSN - 1097-0274
pISSN - 0271-3586
DOI - 10.1002/ajim.4700090309
Subject(s) - medicine , morning , sleep (system call) , noise (video) , audiology , traffic noise , sound pressure , nocturnal , acoustics , noise reduction , image (mathematics) , operating system , physics , artificial intelligence , computer science
Eighteen female and 18 male students (21–30 years) slept in the lab during 12 consecutive nights each, where a high‐density road traffic noise was played back with four intensities. EEG and EOG were recorded continuously throughout the nights. In the morning the subjects assessed their sleep and completed a reaction time test. The following conclusions were made: 1) Performance was not affected by noise. REM sleep decreased abruptly as soon as the sound pressure level exceeded 44 dBA. With increasing noise, sleep was assessed as increasingly worse. 2) Noise‐induced sleep disturbances were not related to sex. 3) The equivalent sound pressure level measured for high‐density road traffic seems to be a valuable predictor for subjective sleep disturbances as long as the maximum levels do not exceed it by more than 8–10 dBA. On the basis of the assessment of sleep and supported by the abrupt decrease of REM sleep, an equivalent noise level of 40 dBA indoors was defined as a critical load, above which nocturnal noise cannot be tolerated any longer.