A mathematical model for a single screen barrier in open-plan offices

In open-plan offices, single screen barriers are widely used to separate individual workplaces as a means of improving acoustical privacy. In this paper, a general model for calculating the insertion loss of a single screen barrier in the presence of a floor and a ceiling is developed using the image source technique. In addition to the acoustical properties of the floor and ceiling, this model also takes the sound absorption of the screen, the sound transmission through the screen and the interference between the sound waves into account. This model is able to separate the contribution of reflected sound and diffracted sound from the total sound pressure level at the receiving point, which can help indicate how best to improve the acoustical design of an open office. The mean differences between the predicted 1/3 octave band insertion loss values behind the screen and the corresponding measured results are within 2 dB.     

Sound propagation between two adjacent rectangular workstations in an open-plan office—part II: effects of office variables

In part I of this paper a general model was developed of sound propagation between adjacent rectangular workstations in a conventional open-plan office. In this paper, the new model is used to investigate the importance of various office design parameters on calculated speech privacy. The additional effects of the side and back panels of complete workstations are examined in detail. Calculations for systematic variations of the principal design parameters show that the separating screen height and the ceiling absorption have the largest effects on expected speech privacy. High speech privacy can only be achieved with the combination of high screens, high ceiling absorption, and high panel absorption. Empirical corrections are developed to estimate how the presence of ceiling lights reduces the effective ceiling absorption. The complete model is shown to accurately predict speech privacy for a range of office design configurations with an RMS error in predicted SII values 0.02.     

Contributions of various transmission paths to speech privacy of open ceiling meeting rooms in open-plan offices

Installing open ceiling meeting rooms inside a large open-plan office provides a solution to increase speech privacy and to reduce speech disturbance in the office. The open ceiling meeting rooms have advantages of low cost construction and flexibility, but have lower speech privacy than that of enclosed rooms due to the open ceiling. Existing research shows that many factors should be taken into account to achieve good speech privacy in open-plan offices and improving only one of these factors may result in little improvement, so it is important to distinguish contributions of different acoustic transmission paths of open ceiling meeting rooms in open-plan offices. This paper proposes an impulse response separation method to quantify contributions of various acoustic paths of open ceiling rooms on speech privacy in open-plan offices. The method is verified with simulations based on the Odeon software and the experiments carried out in 3 different types of rooms. Finally, the proposed method is applied to the Fabpod, a semi enclosed meeting room located in a large indoor office at the Design Research Institute of the RMIT University, to obtain the contributions of different acoustic transmission paths to its speech privacy. The method proposed in this paper and the knowledge obtained are useful for architects to improve the acoustic performance of the next generation Fabpods which are now under design at RMIT University.     

A further study of a mathematical model for a screen in open-plan offices

In order to obtain a good acoustical environment in open-plan offices, the acoustic performance of a single screen needs to be well estimated. Based on the sound pressure or the sound energy summation, the models proposed by previous investigators provided the predictions of the speech intelligibility index (SII) at the receivers behind a single screen in the open-plan offices. In the development of these models, the expression describing the diffracted field of a screen was an empirical formula and the sound diffraction is assumed to be appeared in the shadow region of the screen. In the present study, the MacDonald analytical formula is applied to describe the diffracted field of a screen, and both the diffractions in the visible region and in the shadow region are considered in the proposed model though it seems that the diffraction in the visible region is small compared with that in the shadow region. The comparison of the predicted and experimental results of the Wang and Bradley and the predicted results of the improved model shows that the improved model can provide a more accurate prediction, and further calculations indicate that the improvement is mostly due to the application of the MacDonald analytical diffraction formula.     

Annoyance and noise from road traffic

The cause of insufficient privacy in open plan offices is identified as the reduction of background noise level resulting from the installation of highly absorbent ceilings intended to enhance the performance of portable acoustic screens. The V-form ceiling is suggested as a ceiling design which may increase both screen performance and background level. The extent to which these variables are affected by the use of such a design is investigated by using an acoustic scale model technique. The experimental approach used enables the measurement of attenuation curves for different ceiling configurations and allows the full appraisal of screen performance. It is concluded from the investigation that a V-form ceiling can contribute only marginally to increased privacy in open plan offices by decreasing the Articulation Index for speaker/listener situations by about 0·1.     

Sound propagation between two adjacent rectangular workstations in an open-plan office—part I: mathematical modeling

This paper describes the development of a mathematical model of sound propagation between adjacent workstations in an open-plan office. The model is valid for adjacent rectangular workstations consisting of small enclosures made up of partial-height screens or panels. The new model adds the effects of side and back panels to the primary effect of the common separating screen that was considered in a previous model. In both models, reflections are included using an image source technique and expressions are developed to identify those image sources that represent actual reflection paths. The orientation of openings into the workstations is also considered. Comparisons with measured attenuations of sound propagation between adjacent workstations are included. They verify that the model can quite accurately predict the expected speech privacy between workstations in an open-plan office.     

Effects of unattended speech on performance and subjective distraction: The role of acoustic design in open-plan offices

Unattended background speech is a known source of cognitive and subjective distraction in open-plan offices. This study investigated whether the deleterious effects of background speech can be affected by room acoustic design that decreases speech intelligibility, as measured by the Speech Transmission Index (STI). The experiment was conducted in an open-plan office laboratory (84 m²) in which four acoustic conditions were physically built. Three conditions contained background speech. A quiet condition was included for comparison. The speech conditions differed in terms of the degree of absorption, screen height, desk isolation, and the level of masking sound. The speech sounds simulated an environment where phone conversations are heard from different locations varying in distance. Ninety-eight volunteers were tested. The presence of background speech had detrimental effects on the subjective perceptions of noise effects and on cognitive performance in short-term memory and working memory tasks. These effects were not attenuated nor amplified within a three-hour working period. The reduction of the STI by room acoustic means decreased subjective disturbance, whereas the effects on cognitive performance were somewhat smaller than expected. The effects of room acoustic design on subjective distraction were stronger among noise-sensitive subjects, suggesting that they benefited more from acoustic improvements than non-sensitive subjects. The results imply that reducing the STI is beneficial for performance and acoustic satisfaction especially regarding speech coming from more distant desks. However, acoustic design does not sufficiently decrease the distraction caused by speech from adjacent desks.     

Experimental comparison between speech transmission index, rapid speech transmission index, and speech intelligibility index

During the acoustical design of, e.g., auditoria or open-plan offices, it is important to know how speech can be perceived in various parts of the room. Different objective methods have been developed to measure and predict speech intelligibility, and these have been extensively used in various spaces. In this study, two such methods were compared, the speech transmission index (STI) and the speech intelligibility index (SII). Also the simplification of the STI, the room acoustics speech transmission index (RASTI), was considered. These quantities are all based on determining an apparent speech-to-noise ratio on selected frequency bands and summing them using a specific weighting. For comparison, some data were needed on the possible differences of these methods resulting from the calculation scheme and also measuring equipment. Their prediction accuracy was also of interest. Measurements were made in a laboratory having adjustable noise level and absorption, and in a real auditorium. It was found that the measurement equipment, especially the selection of the loudspeaker, can greatly affect the accuracy of the results. The prediction accuracy of the RASTI was found acceptable, if the input values for the prediction are accurately known, even though the studied space was not ideally diffuse.     

Background babble in open-plan offices: A natural masker of disruptive speech?

Numerous studies have shown that task-irrelevant background speech impairs performance of verbal short-term memory. This well-established effect is related to practice in open-plan offices, where employees are potentially disturbed by the speech of their colleagues. One option to reduce the disruptive effect is by masking the speech, for example, using random noise. Based on past research by Jones and Macken (1995), the ISO Standard 3382-3 (2012) assumes that multiple background speakers in open-plan offices may mask each other in a natural way, consequently reducing the disruptive effect of speech. The aim of this study was to check this assumption using a realistic acoustical simulation of an open-plan office situation. A combination of a nearby speaker and a varying number of background speakers was played to 26 participants while they performed on a verbal short-term memory task. Additionally, the intelligibility of the presented speaker sentences, levels of annoyance, and workload were checked. The results show a significant trend towards an improvement of short-term memory performance when the number of babble voices grows from one to six. However, performance levels are far from those reached under silent conditions. Moreover, annoyance and measures of subjective workload did not diminish due to babble masking.     

汉语背景下开放式办公室声环境的评价研究

通过对北京4个开放式办公室的声环境特性测试以及一系列现场问卷调查,研究了对汉语背景下开放式办公室声环境评价的特点及其与客观声学参数之间的关系。分析发现:汉语背景下人们对声环境的关注程度仅次于光线,并对语言私密性有一定的要求;声环境评价与办公室的工作性质有关,但均在“不好不坏”和“糟糕”之间;声环境评价与背景噪声L_Aeq和L₁₀显著相关,采用混响时间作为单一指标来评价声环境的方法存在明显不足;当减少语言传输指数STI时,可以同时提高语言私密度和改善声环境;声环境认知、声响大小的敏感度、情绪和疲劳等主观因素对声环境评价具有显著性影响,而工作注意力集中程度、每天工作时间、年龄、收入、职位等则影响不显著。      

开放型办公室掩蔽语音环境下工作效率的客观评价方法

本文研究了开放型办公室中平稳噪声掩蔽语音环境下噪声可懂度的客观评价指标与工作效率之间的关系。文章通过对三种客观评价指标:Speech Transmission Index(STI),Perceptually Evaluation of Speech Quality(PESQ)和modified Normalized Covariance Method(mNCM)与专门设计的主观实验结果相对比,得到了该条件下客观评价指标与主观烦扰度和工作效率之间的关系。结果显示,客观评价指标与主观实验结果均具有较高的相关性,说明利用客观评价指标来预测、评估工作效率具有可行性。实验结果还初步揭示了噪声的语言可懂度和工作效率之间的变化规律:在噪声的语言可懂度的中间区域,工作效率变化显著;但噪声的语言可懂度高于一定值以后,工作效率趋于稳定。     

The sound attenuation in an open-plan office

Attenuation curves have been measured in an open-plan office without furniture and with a number of different furniture arrangements. The furniture and screens were found to have little influence on the attenuation curves, which fluctuate in level out to distances of approximately 10 m from the source and tend to stay close to the 6 dB per distance doubling attenuation line beyond 10 m from the source.A theoretical model of the office was found to give predictions which agree closely with the above measurements. The same model does predict attenuation curves which deviate from the 6 dB line in the far field for certain floor and ceiling absorptions not found in the above-mentioned office.     

Prediction of optimal conditions for verbal-communication quality in eating establishments

This paper discusses the prediction of verbal-communication quality in eating establishments (EEs). EEs contain talkers and listeners who require high speech intelligibility at their tables, and high speech privacy between tables. Using catt-Acoustic, verbal-communication quality--quantified by speech transmission index (STI)--in models of three existing EEs was predicted. Talker voice-output levels were predicted using an existing empirical model accounting for the Lombard effect. With these, catt-Acoustic predicted impulse responses, speech levels and noise levels at primary and secondary listener positions, and the corresponding STIs. The untreated EEs were first modeled for various talker and listener positions, and occupancies. Then various treated configurations, involving reduced volume, increased absorption and barriers were studied to determine the effectiveness of the treatments. The results suggest that placing barriers around tables can be an effective way to achieve good verbal-communication quality. Increasing the absorption of the room surfaces or decreasing the ceiling height to control reverberation may not be effective. However, increasing the surface absorption and putting barriers around tables may achieve optimal speech conditions in EEs. Subdividing large EEs into smaller ones can also be effective.     

Audibility-based predictions of speech recognition for children and adults with normal hearing

This study investigated the relationship between audibility and predictions of speech recognition for children and adults with normal hearing. The Speech Intelligibility Index (SII) is used to quantify the audibility of speech signals and can be applied to transfer functions to predict speech recognition scores. Although the SII is used clinically with children, relatively few studies have evaluated SII predictions of children's speech recognition directly. Children have required more audibility than adults to reach maximum levels of speech understanding in previous studies. Furthermore, children may require greater bandwidth than adults for optimal speech understanding, which could influence frequency-importance functions used to calculate the SII. Speech recognition was measured for 116 children and 19 adults with normal hearing. Stimulus bandwidth and background noise level were varied systematically in order to evaluate speech recognition as predicted by the SII and derive frequency-importance functions for children and adults. Results suggested that children required greater audibility to reach the same level of speech understanding as adults. However, differences in performance between adults and children did not vary across frequency bands.     

The effects of speech intelligibility and temporal–spectral variability on performance and annoyance ratings

Ambient sound can impair verbal short-term memory performance. This finding is relevant to the acoustic optimization of open-plan offices. Two algorithmic approaches claim to model the impairment during a given sound condition. One model is based on the Speech Transmission Index (STI). The other approach relies on the hearing sensation fluctuation strength (F). Within the scope of our consulting activities the approach based on F can hardly be applied and the model based on the STI is often misinterpreted in terms of semanticity. Therefore we put to test the two models and elucidate the relevance of temporal–spectral variability and semanticity of background sound with regard to impairment of performance. A group of 24 subjects performed a short-term memory task and rated perceived annoyance during eight different speech and speech-like noise conditions, which varied with regard to STI and F. The empirical data is compared to the model predictions, which only partly cover the experimental results. Speech impairs performance more than all other sound conditions and variable speech-like noise is more impairing than continuous speech-like noise. Sound masking with continuous speech-like noise provides relief from the negative effect of background speech. This positive effect is more pronounced if the signal to noise ratio is −3 dB(A) or even lower.     

Speech production in noise with and without hearing protection

People working in noisy environments often complain of difficulty communicating when they wear hearing protection. It was hypothesized that part of the workers' communication difficulties stem from changes in speech production that occur when hearing protectors are worn. To address this possibility, overall and one-third-octave-band SPL measurements were obtained for 16 men and 16 women as they produced connected speech while wearing foam, flange, or no earplugs (open ears) in quiet and in pink noise at 60, 70, 80, 90, and 100 dB SPL. The attenuation and the occlusion effect produced by the earplugs were measured. The Speech Intelligibility Index (SII) was also calculated for each condition. The talkers produced lower overall speech levels, speech-to-noise ratios, and SII values, and less high-frequency speech energy, when they wore earplugs compared with the open-ear condition. Small differences in the speech measures between the talkers wearing foam and flange earplugs were observed. Overall, the results of the study indicate that talkers wearing earplugs (and consequently their listeners) are at a disadvantage when communicating in noise.     

Indoor Noise Reduction Index with an open window (Part II)

An index to evaluate indoor noise level reduction with an open window Noise Reduction Index (NRI) was proposed [Buratti C. Indoor Noise Reduction Index with open window. Appl Acoust 2002;63(4):431-51]. The reduction was due to the installation of a false ceiling in the room, thus reducing the contribution of the reverberant field. Experimental data related to two different kinds of false ceiling were compared to the results obtained by an original calculation model. Good agreement was found between experiments with two different materials and predictions. The present paper examines six different kinds of false ceiling and arrives at a new validation of the model. Calculations of NRI show good agreement with experimental data: a maximum difference of −1.2 dB(A) was found with a mean difference of 0.5 dB(A) for a wide range of absorption coefficient values. Hence the model represents a reliable instrument for indoor NRI prediction, if the acoustic absorption characteristics of materials are known.     

Case-study evaluations of the acoustical designs of renovated university classrooms

The acoustical characteristics of 14 university classrooms at the University of British Columbia were measured before and after renovation—seven of these are discussed in detail here. From these measurements, and theoretical considerations, values of quantities used to assess each classroom configuration were predicted, and used to evaluate renovation quality. Information on each renovation was determined with the help of the university campus-planning office and/or the project acoustical consultant. These were related to the evaluation results in order to determine the relationship between design and acoustical quality. The criteria focused on the quality of verbal communication in the classrooms. Room-average Speech Intelligibility (SI) and its physical correlate, Speech Transmission Index (STI), were used to quantify verbal-communication quality. A simplified STI-calculation procedure was applied. The results indicate that some renovations were beneficial, others were not. Verbal-communication quality varied from ‘poor’ to ‘good’. The effect of a renovation depends on a complex interplay between changes in the reverberation and changes in the signal-to-noise level difference, as affected by sound absorption and the source outputs. Renovations which reduce noise are beneficial unless signal-to-noise level differences remain optimal. Renovations often put too much emphasis on adding sound absorption to control reverberation, at the expense of lower speech levels, particularly at the backs of classrooms. The absorption and noise contributed by room occupants has apparently often been neglected.     

Ceiling baffles and reflectors for controlling lecture-room sound for speech intelligibility

Reinforcing speech levels and controlling noise and reverberation are the ultimate acoustical goals of lecture-room design to achieve high speech intelligibility. The effects of sound absorption on these factors have opposite consequences for speech intelligibility. Here, novel ceiling baffles and reflectors were evaluated as a sound-control measure, using computer and 1/8-scale models of a lecture room with hard surfaces and excessive reverberation. Parallel ceiling baffles running front to back were investigated. They were expected to absorb reverberation incident on the ceiling from many angles, while leaving speech signals, reflecting from the ceiling to the back of the room, unaffected. Various baffle spacings and absorptions, central and side speaker positions, and receiver positions throughout the room, were considered. Reflective baffles controlled reverberation, with a minimum decrease of sound levels. Absorptive baffles reduced reverberation, but reduced speech levels significantly. Ceiling reflectors, in the form of obstacles of semicircular cross section, suspended below the ceiling, were also tested. These were either 7 m long and in parallel, front-to-back lines, or 0.8 m long and randomly distributed, with flat side up or down, and reflective or absorptive top surfaces. The long reflectors with flat side down and no absorption were somewhat effective; the other configurations were not.     

Measurement of acoustical characteristics of mosques in Saudi Arabia

The study of mosque acoustics, with regard to acoustical characteristics, sound quality for speech intelligibility, and other applicable acoustic criteria, has been largely neglected. In this study a background as to why mosques are designed as they are and how mosque design is influenced by worship considerations is given. In the study the acoustical characteristics of typically constructed contemporary mosques in Saudi Arabia have been investigated, employing a well-known impulse response. Extensive field measurements were taken in 21 representative mosques of different sizes and architectural features in order to characterize their acoustical quality and to identify the impact of air conditioning, ceiling fans, and sound reinforcement systems on their acoustics. Objective room-acoustic indicators such as reverberation time (RT) and clarity (C50) were measured. Background noise (BN) was assessed with and without the operation of air conditioning and fans. The speech transmission index (STI) was also evaluated with and without the operation of existing sound reinforcement systems. The existence of acoustical deficiencies was confirmed and quantified. The study, in addition to describing mosque acoustics, compares design goals to results obtained in practice and suggests acoustical target values for mosque design. The results show that acoustical quality in the investigated mosques deviates from optimum conditions when unoccupied, but is much better in the occupied condition.