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Noise can be distracting, especially to a person trying to concentrate on a difficult task. Studying annoying noises helps architects design better building environments and policy makers choose effective noise regulations. To better understand how short noise bursts affect humans’ mental state, researchers from the University of Nebraska – Lincoln played quarter-second-long white noise clips to test subjects as they worked on arithmetic problems.

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Miss hitting the “sweet spot” on a baseball bat and the resulting vibrations can zing your hands. Bat companies have tried for decades to reduce these painful shocks with limited success. But Daniel Russell, a professor in the graduate program in acoustics at Pennsylvania State University in University Park, has figured out that bat vibrations between 600 and 700 hertz (Hz) cause the most pain and that specifically tuned vibration absorbers are the best at combatting the sting.

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Earthquakes sway buildings, buckle terrain, and rumble – both audibly and in infrasound, frequencies below the threshold of human hearing. New computer modeling by a team of researchers indicates that most of the low-frequency infrasound comes from an unexpected source: the actual “pumping” of the Earth’s surface. The researchers confirmed their models by studying data from an actual earthquake.

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Perfect pitch, dolphin communication, and noise in the community and in nature are just some of the intriguing topics that will be presented at the 164th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA).

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An acoustic diode, enabling the one-way transmission of sound waves, could dramatically improve the quality of medical ultrasound imaging and lead to better sound dampening materials. Such a device has now been created by researchers at China’s Nanjing University.

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For the ears, a cocktail party presents a chaotic scene: glasses clink, voices buzz, light piano music may waft down from the stage. A group of researchers at The John Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md., is trying to understand how the brain makes sense of such complex auditory environments. The team is testing how humans track sound patterns over time, and under what circumstances the brain registers that the pattern has been broken.

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Toothed whales navigate through sometimes dark and murky waters by emitting clicks and then interpreting the pattern of sound that bounces back. The animals’ hearing can pick up faint echoes, but that sensitivity can be a liability around loud noises. Now researchers have discovered that whales may protect their ears by lowering their hearing sensitivity when warned of an imminent loud sound.

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To gain new insights into how dolphins communicate, researchers in Japan created a prototype of an extremely broadband “dolphin speaker” capable of projecting dolphins’ communication sounds, whistles, burst-pulse sounds, as well as detection sounds such as echolocation clicks.

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Though they evolved separately over millions of years in different worlds of darkness, bats and toothed whales use surprisingly similar acoustic behavior to locate, track, and capture prey using echolocation, the biological equivalent of sonar. Now a team of Danish researchers has shown that the acoustic behavior of these two types of animals while hunting is eerily similar.

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A U.S.-Netherlands research collaboration discovered that actual actions on objects, such as physically stirring a spoon in a cup, have less of an impact on the brain’s understanding of speech than simply gesturing as if stirring a spoon in a cup.

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New findings from a Canadian research team suggest that not only is there a real connection between vision and other senses, but that connection is important to better understand the underlying mechanisms that can quickly trigger sensory changes.

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Listening to amplified music for less than 1.5 hours produces measurable changes in hearing ability that may place listeners at risk of noise-induced hearing loss, new research shows.

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Although we have little awareness that we are doing it, we spend most of our lives filtering out many of the sounds that permeate our lives and acutely focusing on others – a phenomenon known as auditory selective attention. Hearing scientists at the University of Washington (UW) are attempting to tease apart the process.

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Volcanoes emit a broad spectrum of sonic energy. In the case of basaltic eruptions, most of that acoustical energy in the infrasound range. A new study reveals that this low-frequency sound can give scientists an enhanced understanding of the behavior of volcanoes and a tool to monitor the lifecycles of their eruptions.

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National parks are prized for their visual splendor, but the sounds of nature are also part of that rich experience. Researchers and protected area managers are working together to help ensure that the sounds in U.S. national parks remain as natural as possible.

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Acoustic cues for blind travelers, sound as a tool, and the use of metamaterials for seismic mitigation are just some of the lay-language versions of papers being presented at the Acoustics 2012 meeting in Hong Kong, May 13-18, a joint meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA), Acoustical Society of China, Western Pacific Acoustics Conference, and the Hong Kong Institute of Acoustics.

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The 163rd Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) will feature more than 1,300 presentations on the science of sound and its impact on physics, engineering, and medicine. Topics include: hearing and its interplay with the other senses; using sound to monitor the environment; and new insights into human and animal communication.