1aNS4 – Musical mind control: Human speech takes on characteristics of background music

Ryan Podlubny – ryan.podlubny@pg.canterbury.ac.nz
Department of Linguistics, University of Canterbury
20 Kirkwood Avenue, Upper Riccarton
Christchurch, NZ, 8041

Popular version of paper 1aNS4, “Musical mind control: Acoustic convergence to background music in speech production.”
Presented Monday morning, November 28, 2016
172nd ASA Meeting, Honolulu

People often adjust their speech to resemble that of their conversation partners – a phenomenon known as speech convergence. Broadly defined, convergence describes automatic synchronization to some external source, much like running to the beat of music playing at the gym without intentionally choosing to do so. Through a variety of studies a general trend has emerged where we find people automatically synchronizing to various aspects of their environment1,2,3. With specific regard to language use, convergence effects have also been observed in many linguistic domains such as sentence-formation4, word-formation5, and vowel production6 (where differences in vowel production are well associated with perceived accentedness7,8). This prevalence in linguistics raises many interesting questions about the extent to which speakers converge. This research uses a speech-in-noise paradigm to explore whether or not speakers also converge to non-linguistic signals in the environment: Specifically, will a speaker’s rhythm, pitch, or intensity (which is closely related to loudness) be influenced by fluctuations in background music such that the speech echoes specific characteristics of that background music (for example, if the tempo of background music slows down, will that influence those listening to unconsciously decrease their speech rate)?

In this experiment participants read passages aloud while hearing music through headphones. Background music was composed by the experimenter to be relatively stable with regard to pitch, tempo/rhythm, and intensity, so we could manipulate and test only one of these dimensions at a time, within each test-condition. We imposed these manipulations gradually and consistently toward a target, which can be seen in Figure 1, and would similarly return to the level at which they started after reaching that target. We played the participants music with no experimental changes in between all manipulated sessions. (Examples of what participants heard in headphones are available as sound- files 1 and 2)

podlubny_fig1

Fig. 1: Using software designed for digital signal processing (analyzing and altering sound), manipulations were applied in a linear fashion (in a straight line) toward a target – this can be seen above as the blue line, which first rises and then falls. NOTE: After manipulations reach their target (the target is seen above as a dashed, vertical red line), the degree of manipulation would then return to the level at which it started in a similar linear fashion. Graphic captured while using Praat 9 to increase and then decrease the perceived loudness of the background music.

Data from 15 native speakers of New Zealand English were analyzed using statistical tests that allow effects to vary somewhat for each participant where we observed significant convergence in both the pitch and intensity conditions. Analysis of the Tempo condition, however, has not yet been conducted. Interestingly, these effects appear to differ systematically based on a person’s previous musical training. While non-musicians demonstrate the predicted effect and follow the manipulations, musicians appear to invert the effect and reliably alter aspects of their pitch and intensity in the opposite direction of the manipulation (see Figure 2). Sociolinguistic research indicates that under certain conditions speakers will emphasize characteristics of their speech to distinguish themselves socially from conversation partners or groups, as opposed to converging with them6. It seems plausible then that, given a relatively heightened ability to recognize low-level variations of sound, musicians may on some cognitive level be more aware of the variation in their sound environment, and as a result similarly resist the more typical effect. However, more work is required to better understand this phenomenon.

podlubny_fig2

Fig. 2: The above plots measure pitch on the y-axis (up and down on the left edge), and indicate the portions of background music that have been manipulated on the x- axis (across the bottom). The blue lines show that speakers generally lower their pitch as an un-manipulated condition progresses. However the red lines show that when global pitch is lowered during a test-condition, such lowering is relatively more dramatic for non-musicians (left plot) and that the effect is reversed by those with musical training (right plot). NOTE: A follow-up model further accounts for the relatedness of Pitch and Intensity and shows much the same effect.

This work indicates that speakers are not only influenced by human speech partners in production, but also, to some degree, by noise within the immediate speech environment, which suggests that environmental noise may constantly be influencing certain aspects of our speech production in very specific and predictable ways. Human listeners are rather talented when it comes to recognizing subtle cues in speech10, especially compared to computers and algorithms that can’t  yet match this ability. Some language scientists argue these changes in speech occur to make understanding easier for those listening11. That is why work like this is likely to resonate in both academia and the private sector, as a better understanding of how speech will change in different environments contributes to the development of more effective aids for the hearing impaired, as well as improvements to many devices used in global communications. 

Sound-file 1.
An example of what participants heard as a control condition (no experimental manipulation) in between test-conditions. 

Sound-file 2.
An example of what participants heard as a test condition (Pitch manipulation, which drops 200 cents/one full step).

References

1.  Hill, A. R., Adams, J. M., Parker, B. E., & Rochester, D. F. (1988). Short-term entrainment of ventilation to the walking cycle in humans. Journal of Applied Physiology, 65(2), 570-578.
2. Will, U., & Berg, E. (2007). Brain wave synchronization and entrainment to periodic acoustic stimuli. Neuroscience letters, 424(1), 55-60.
3.  McClintock, M. K. (1971). Menstrual synchrony and suppression. Nature, Vol 229, 244-245.
4.  Branigan, H. P., Pickering, M. J., McLean, J. F., & Cleland, A. A. (2007). Syntactic alignment and participant role in dialogue. Cognition, 104(2), 163-197.
5.  Beckner, C., Rácz, P., Hay, J., Brandstetter, J., & Bartneck, C. (2015). Participants Conform to Humans but Not to Humanoid
Robots in an English Past Tense Formation Task. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 0261927X15584682.
Retreived from: http://jls.sagepub.com.ezproxy.canterbury.ac.nz/content/early/2015/05/06/0261927X15584682.
6.  Babel, M. (2012). Evidence for phonetic and social selectivity in spontaneous phonetic imitation. Journal of Phonetics, 40(1), 177-189.
7.  Major, R. C. (1987). English voiceless stop production by speakers of Brazilian Portuguese. Journal of Phonetics, 15, 197—
202.
8.  Rekart, D. M. (1985) Evaluation of foreign accent using synthetic speech. Ph.D. dissertation, the Lousiana State University.
9.  Boersma, P., & Weenink, D. (2014). Praat: Doing phonetics by computer (Version 5.4.04) [Computer program]. Retrieved
from www.praat.org.
10.  Hay, J., Podlubny, R., Drager, K., & McAuliffe, M. (under review). Car-talk: Location-specific speech production and
perception.
11.  Lane, H., & Tranel, B. (1971). The Lombard sign and the role of hearing in speech. Journal of Speech, Language, and
Hearing Research, 14(4), 677-709.

2aNSa – Soundscapes and human restoration in green urban areas

Irene van Kamp, (irene.van.kamp@rivm.nl)
Elise van Kempen,
Hanneke Kruize,
Wim Swart
National Institute for Public Health and the Environment
Netherlands
Pobox 1 Postvak 10
3720 BA BILTHOVEN
Netherlands
Phone +31629555704

Popular version of paper in session 2aNSa, “Soundscapes and human restoration in green urban areas”
Presented Tuesday morning, May 19, 2015, 9:35 AM, Commonwealth 1
169th ASA Meeting, Pittsburgh

Worldwide there is a revival of interest in the positive effect of landscapes, green and blue space, open countryside on human well-being, quality of life, and health especially for urban dwellers. However, most studies do not account for the influence of the acoustic environment in these spaces both in a negative and positive way. One of the few studies in the field, which was done by Kang and Zhang (2010) identified relaxation, communication, dynamics and spatiality as the key factors in the evaluation of urban soundscapes. Remarkable is their finding that the general public and urban designers clearly value public space very different. The latter had a much stronger preference for natural sounds and green spaces than the lay-observers. Do we as professionals tend to exaggerate the value of green and what characteristics of urban green space are key to health, wellbeing and restoration? And what role does the acoustic quality and accompanying social quality play in this? In his famous studies on livable streets Donald Appleyard concluded that in heavy traffic streets the number of contacts with friends, acquaintances and the amount of social interaction in general was much lower. Also people in busy streets had a tendency to describe their environment as being much smaller than their counterparts in quiet streets did. In other words, the acoustic quality affects not only our wellbeing and behavior but also our sense of territory, social cohesion and social interactions. And this concerns all of us: citing Appleyard “nearly everyone in the world lives in a street”.

There is evidence that green or natural areas/wilderness/ or urban environments with natural elements as well as areas with a high sound quality can intrinsically provide restoration through spending time there. Also merely the knowledge that such quiet and green places are available seems to work as a buffer effect between stress and health (Van Kamp, Klaeboe, Brown, and Lercher, 2015 : in Jian Kang and Brigitte Schulte-Fortkamp (Eds) in press).

Recently a European study was performed into the health effect of access and use of green area in four European cities of varying size in Spain, the UK, Netherlands and Lithuania)

At the four study centers people were selected from neighborhoods with varying levels of socioeconomic status and green and blue space. By means of a structured interview information was gathered about availability, use and importance of green space in the immediate environment as well as the sound quality of favorite green areas used for physical activity, social encounters and relaxation. Data are also available about perceived mental/physical health and medication use. This allowed for analyzing the association between indicators of green, restoration and health, while accounting for perceived soundscapes in more detail. In general there are four mechanisms assumed that lead from green and tranquil space to health: via physical activity, via social interactions and relaxation and finally via reduced levels of traffic related air and noise pollution. This paper will explore the role of sound in the process which leads from access and use of green space to restoration and health. So far this aspect has been understudied. There is some indication that certain areas contribute to restoration more than others. Most studies address the restorative effects of natural recreational areas outside the urban environment. The question is whether natural areas within, and in the vicinity of, urban areas contribute to psycho-physiological and mental restoration after stress as well. Does restoration require the absence of urban noise?

Urban soundscapes
Example of an acoustic environment – a New York City Park – with potential restorative outcomes (Photo: A.L. Brown)

Tags: health, soundscapes, people, environment, green, urban

2pNSb – A smartphone noise meter app in every pocket?

Chucri A. Kardous – ckardous@cdc.gov
Peter B. Shaw – pbs3@cdc.gov
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
1090 Tusculum Avenue
Cincinnati, Ohio 45226

Popular version of paper 2pNSb, “Use of smartphone sound measurement apps for occupational noise assessments”
Presented Tuesday May 19, 2015, 3:55 PM, Ballroom 1
169th ASA Meeting, Pittsburgh, PA
See also: Evaluation of smartphone sound measurement applications

Our world is getting louder. Excessive noise is a public health problem and can cause a range of health issues; noise exposure can induce hearing impairment, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, sleep disturbance, and a host of other psychological and social behavior problems. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that there are 360 million people with disabling hearing loss. Occupational hearing loss is the most common work-related illness in the United States; the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) estimates that approximately 22 million U.S. workers are exposed to hazardous noise.

Smartphones users are expected to hit the 2 billion mark in 2015. The ubiquity of smartphones and the sophistication of current sound measurement applications (apps) present a great opportunity to revolutionize the way we look at noise and its effects on our hearing and overall health. Through the use of crowdsourcing techniques, people around the world may be able to collect and share noise exposure data using their smartphones. Scientists and public health professionals could rely on such shared data to promote better hearing health and prevention efforts. In addition, the ability to acquire and display real-time noise exposure data raises people’s awareness about their work (and off-work) environment and allows them to make informed decisions about hazards to their hearing and overall well-being. For instance, the European Environment Agency (EEA) developed the Noise Watch app that allows citizens around the world to make noise measurements whether at their work or during their leisure activities, and upload that data to a database in real time and using the smartphone GPS capabilities to construct a map of the noisiest places and sources in their environment.

However, not all smartphone sound measurements apps are equal. Some are basic and not very accurate while some are much more sophisticated. NIOSH researchers conducted a study of 192 smartphone sound measurement apps to examine the accuracy and functionality of such apps. We conducted the study in our acoustics laboratory and compared the results to a professional sound level meter. Only 10 apps met our selection criteria, and of those only 4 met our accuracy requirements of being within ±2 decibels (dB) of type 1 professional sound level meter. Apps developed for the iOS platform were more advanced, functionality and performance wise, than Android apps. You can read more about our original study on our NIOSH Science Blog at: http://blogs.cdc.gov/niosh-science-blog/2014/04/09/sound-apps/ or download our JASA paper at: http://scitation.aip.org/content/asa/journal/jasa/135/4/10.1121/1.4865269.

Testing the SoundMeter app on the iPhone 5 and iPhone 4S
Figure 1. Testing the SoundMeter app on the iPhone 5 and iPhone 4S against a ½” Larson-Davis 2559 random incidence reference microphone
Today, we will present on our additional efforts to examine the accuracy of smartphone sound measurement apps using external microphones that can be calibrated. There are several external microphones available mostly for the consumer market, and although they vary greatly in price, they all possess similar acoustical specifications and have performed similarly in our laboratory tests. Preliminary results showed even greater agreement with professional sound measurement instruments (± 1 dB) over our testing range.

Calibrating the SPLnFFT app
Figure 2. Calibrating the SPLnFFT app with MicW i436 external microphone using the Larson-Davis CAL250 acoustic calibrator (114 dB SPL @ 250Hz)

Figure 3

Figure 3. Laboratory testing of 4 iOS devices using MicW i436 and comparing the measurements to a Larson-Davis type 831 sound level meter (pink noise at 75 dBA)

We will also discuss our plans to develop and distribute a free NIOSH Sound Level Meter app in an effort to facilitate future occupational research efforts and build an noise job exposure database.

Challenges remain with using smartphones to collect and document noise exposure data. Some of the main issues encountered in recent studies relate to privacy and collection of personal data, sustained motivation to participate in such studies, bad or corrupted data, and mechanisms for storing and accessing such data.

2aNSa1 – Soundscape will tune an acoustic environment through peoples’ mind

Brigitte Schulte-Fortkamp – b.schulte-fortkamp@tu-berlin.de
Technical University Berlin
Institute of Fluid Mechanics and Engineering Acoustics
-Psychoacoustics and Noise effects –
Einsteinufer 25
10587 Berlin -Germany

Popular version of paper 2aNSa1, “Soundscape as a resource to balance the quality of an acoustic environment”
Tuesday morning, May 19, 2015, 8:35 AM, Commonwealth 1
169th ASA Meeting, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania

Preface
Soundscape studies investigate and find increasingly better ways to measure and hone the acoustic environment. Soundscape offers the opportunity for multidisciplinary working, bringing together science, medicine, social studies and the arts – combined, crucially, with analysis, advice and feedback from the ‘users of the space’ as the primary ‘experts’ of any environment – to find creative and responsive solutions for protection of living places and to enhance the quality of life.

The Soundscape concept was introduced as a scope to rethink the evaluation of “noise” and its effects. The challenge was to consider the limits of acoustic measurements and to account for its cultural dimension.

The recent international standard ISO 12913-1 Acoustics — Soundscape —Part 1: Definition and conceptual framework Acoustique – Paysage sonore -Partie 1: Définition et cadre conceptual clarifies soundscape as an “acoustic environment as perceived or experienced and/or understood by a person or people, in context”

Soundscape
Figure 1 — Elements in the perceptual construct of soundscape

Soundscape suggests exploring noise in its complexity and its ambivalence and its approach towards sound to consider the conditions and purposes of its production, perception, and evaluation, to understand evaluation of noise/ sound as a holistic approach.

To discuss the contribution of Soundscape research into the area of Community noise research means to focus on the meaning of sounds and its implicit assessments to contribute to the understanding that the evaluation through perceptual effects is a key issue.

Using the resources – an example-
Soundscape Approach Public Space Perception and Enhancement Drawing on Experience in Berlin
Slide1 - Soundscape
Figure 2 – Soundscape Nauener Platz

The concept of development of the open pace relies on the understanding that people living in the chosen are the “real” experts concerning the evaluation of this place according to their expectations and experiences in the respective area. The intention of scientific research here is to learn about the meaning of the noise with respect to people’s living situation and to implement the adequate procedure to open the “black box” of people’s mind.

Therefore, the aim was to get residents involved through workshops to get access to the different social groups.
Slide4
Figure 3 – Participation and Collaboration
Slide3
Figure 4 – The concept of evaluation

Interdisciplinarity is considered as a must in the soundscape approach. In this case it was concerned with the collaboration of architects, acoustics engineers, environmental health specialists, psychologists, social scientists, and urban developers. The tasks are related to the local individual needs and are open to noise sensitive and other vulnerable groups. It is also concerned with cultural aspects and the relevance of natural soundscapes – sometimes referred to as quiet areas – which is obviously related to the highest level of needs.
Slide6
Figure 5 – Soundscape – an interactive approach using the resources

Improving local soundscape quality?
Obviously, these new approaches and methods make it possible to learn about the process of perception and evaluation sufficiently as they take into account the context, ambiance, the usual interaction between noise and listener and the multidimensionality of noise perception.

By contrast, conventional methods often reduce the complexity of reality on controllable variables, which supposedly represent the scrutinized object. Furthermore, traditional tests neglect frequently the context-dependency of human perception; they only provide artificial realities and diminish the complexity of perception on merely predetermined values, which do not completely correspond with perceptual authenticity. However, perception and evaluations entirely depend on the respective influences of the acoustic and non-acoustic modifiers.

Following the comments and group discussion and also the results from the narrative interviews it could be defined why people prefer some places over the public place and why not. It also became clear how people experience the noise in the distance from the road and also with respect to social life and social control. One of the most important findings here is how people react to low frequency noise at the public place and how experiences and expectations work together. It becomes obvious that the most wanted sound in this area is based on wishes to escape the road traffic noise through natural sounds.
Slide5
Figure 6 – Selected sounds for audio islands

Reshaping the place based on people’s expertise
Relying on the combined evaluation procedures the place was reshaped installing a gabion wall along one of the main roads and further more audio islands like have been built that integrated the sounds people would like to enjoy when using the place. While the gabion wall protects against noise around the playground, the new installed audio islands provide nature sounds as selected by the people involved in the Soundscape approach.
Slide7
Figure 7 – Installation of the sounds

Conclusions
Slide8
Figure 8 – The new place

The process of tuning of urban areas with respect to the expertise of people’s mind and quality of life is related to the strategy of triangulation and provides the theoretical frame with regard to the solution of e.g. the change in an area. In other words: Approaching the field in this holistic manner is generally needed.

An effective and sustainable reduction of the number of highly annoyed people caused by noise is only possible with further scientific endeavors in the area of methods development and research of noise effects. Noise maps providing further information can help to obtain a deeper understanding of noise reactions and can help to reliably identify perception-related hot spots. Psychoacoustic maps are particularly interesting in areas where the noise levels are marginal below the noise level limits and offer an additional interpretation help with respect to the identification of required noise abatement measures.

But, the expertise of people involved will provide meaningful information. Soundwalks as an eligibly instrument for exploring urban areas by minds of the “local experts” as measuring device open a field of data for triangulation. These techniques in combination allow giving meaning to the numbers and values of recordings and their analysis to understand the significance of sound and noise as well as the perception of Soundscapes by its resources.
tags: soundscape, acoustics, people, health

REFERENCES
J. Kang, B. Schulte-Fortkamp (editors) Soundscape and the Built Environment CRC Press | Taylor & Francis Group, in print
B. Schulte-Fortkamp, J. Kang (editors) Special Issue on Soundscape, JASA 2012
R. M. Schafer, “The Soundscape. Our sonic environment and the tuning of the world.” Rochester, Vermont: Destiny Books, (1977).
B. Hollstein, “Qualitative approaches to social reality: the search for meaning” in: John Scott & Peter J. Carrington (Eds.): Sage handbook of social network analysis. London/Newe Dehli: Sage. (2012)
R. M. Schafer, “The Book of Noise” (Price Milburn Co., Lee, Wellington, NZ, (1973).
B. Truax, (ed.) „Handbook for Acoustic Ecology” (A.R.C. Publication, Vancouver, (1978).
K. Hiramatsu, “Soundscape: The Concept and Its Significance in Acoustics,” Proc. ICA, Kyoto, 2004.
A. Fiebig, B. Schulte-Fortkamp, K. Genuit, „New options for the determination of environmental noise quality”, 35th International Congress and Exposition on Noise Control Engineering INTER-NOISE 2006, 04.-06.December 2006, Honolulu, HI.
P. Lercher, B. Schulte-Fortkamp, “Soundscape and community noise annoyance in the context of environmental impact assessments,” Proc. INTER-NOISE 2003, 2815-2824, (2003).
B. Schulte-Fortkamp, D. Dubois: (editors) Acta Acustica united with Acustica, Special Issue, Recent advances in Soundscape research, Vol 92 (6), (2006).
R. Klaboe, et. al. „Änderungen in der Klang- und Stadtlandschaft nach Änderung von Straßenverkehrsstraßen im Stadtteil Oslo-Ost“, Fortschritte der Akustik, Oldenburg, (2000).

“Natural” Sounds Improves Mood and Productivity, Study Finds

“Natural” Sounds Improves Mood and Productivity, Study Finds

Work presented at the 169th Acoustical Society of America (ASA) Meeting in Pittsburgh may have benefits from the office cube to the in-patient ward

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 19, 2015 — Playing natural sounds such as flowing water in offices could boosts worker moods and improve cognitive abilities in addition to providing speech privacy, according to a new study from researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. They will present the results of their experiment at the 169th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in Pittsburgh.

An increasing number of modern open-plan offices employ sound masking systems that raise the background sound of a room so that speech is rendered unintelligible beyond a certain distance and distractions are less annoying.

“If you’re close to someone, you can understand them. But once you move farther away, their speech is obscured by the masking signal,” said Jonas Braasch, an acoustician and musicologist at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York.

Sound masking systems are custom designed for each office space by consultants and are typically installed as speaker arrays discretely tucked away in the ceiling. For the past 40 years, the standard masking signal employed is random, steady-state electronic noise — also known as “white noise.”

Braasch and his team had previously tested whether masking signals inspired by natural sounds might work just as well, or better, than the conventional signal. The idea was inspired by previous work by Braasch and his graduate student Mikhail Volf, which showed that people’s ability to regain focus improved when they were exposed to natural sounds versus silence or machine-based sounds.

Recently, Braasch and his graduate student Alana DeLoach built upon those results in a new experiment. They exposed [HOW MANY??] human participants to three different sound stimuli while performing a task that required them to pay close attention: typical office noises with the conventional random electronic signal; an office soundscape with a “natural” masker; and an office soundscape with no masker. The test subjects only encountered one of the three stimuli per visit.

The natural sound used in the experiment was designed to mimic the sound of flowing water in a mountain stream. “The mountain stream sound possessed enough randomness that it did not become a distraction,” DeLoach said. “This is a key attribute of a successful masking signal.”

They found that workers who listened to natural sounds were more productive than the workers exposed to the other sounds and reported being in better moods.

Braasch said using natural sounds as a masking signal could have benefits beyond the office environment. “You could use it to improve the moods of hospital patients who are stuck in their rooms for days or weeks on end,” Braasch said.

For those who might be wary of employers using sounds to influence their moods, Braasch argued that using natural masking sounds is no different from a company that wants to construct a new building near the coast so that its workers can be exposed to the soothing influence of ocean surf.

“Everyone would say that’s a great employer,” Braasch said. “We’re just using sonic means to achieve that same effect.”

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2aID11 – A transducer not to be ignored: The siren

J. D. Maynard
Department of Physics
The Pennsylvania State University
University Park, PA 16802

Popular version of paper 2aID11
Presented Tuesday morning, October 28, 2014
168th ASA Meeting, Indianapolis

The siren is a source of sound (or sound transducer) which captures our attention because we know it may emanate from a police vehicle, fire engine, tornado warning tower or other danger warning system. However, there is another reason to heed the siren: it can be a “death ray”! Most of us know of the death ray from science fiction stories which describe a device which can annihilate whole armies silently from a distance. Around 1950 there were newspaper stories which heralded the advent of an actual death ray, with headlines and text such as: “‘Death Ray’ May Be Red [Soviet] Weapon. In the great super arms duel between east and west, has Russia successfully added the “death ray” to its growing arsenal?” (Franklin Johnson, OP, Washington, February 17, 1953) and “US sound ray kills mice in minute. The United States Army has announced the development of a supersonic death ray that kills mice in one minute. In spite of precautions the ray has inflicted burns, dizzyness and loss of balance on laboratory workers.” (American journal, New York, 1947). It may be assumed, and in some cases known, that the death ray referred to in these articles was a high intensity siren which was “silent” because it operated at a frequency above the threshold of human hearing (humans cannot hear frequencies above about 20,000 cycles per second). It was “high intensity” because it operated at a power level which was 10,000 times louder than the level of sound where the sense of “loudness” disappears and pain sets in; at the much louder level, pain becomes death, at least for mice.

A likely cause for the news articles was research with a siren undertaken by acousticians C. H. Allen and Isadore Rudnick, working under H. K. Schilling, Director of the Pennsylvania State College Acoustics Laboratory in 1946. Anyone who knew Izzy Rudnick would hypothesize that his response to the news articles would have been “Rumors of my death ray have been greatly exaggerated”. Indeed, a mouse had to be within about four inches (about 10 centimeters) of the siren in order to be killed, and its death was deemed to be a result of an increase in the temperature of the mouse due to absorption of the sound. In the same manner, the siren was used to heat a cup of coffee, ignite a ball of cotton and pop popcorn. The figure below shows the “trumpet horn” shaped opening of a siren, above which a glass tube is suspended; the lower part of the glass tube contains some popcorn kernels, and the upper part shows some popcorn popping upward.

At close range, a high intensity siren could cause human inner ear problems and deafness, and could set your hair on fire, but it could never be a real death ray. For the most part, the siren has received serious study by acousticians so as to make it a more efficient and longer range danger warning device.

[MISSING IMAGE] Figure. A high intensity acoustic siren being used to pop popcorn.