The effect of plastic shield on the speech attenuation: A case study

Abstract

The number one social issue for more than a year is the COVID-19 pandemic caused by the spread of coronavirus. In addition to the adverse social and economic impact on society as a whole, the inclusion of quarantine, home office and many other changes in lives, this situation is associated with various recommendations as well as the obligation to use upper respiratory protection. Countless variants of drapes, respirators, shields etc. are used in the world. Their qualitative evaluation from the point of view of virus protection has already been published by many publications. However, the use of a mouth covering also affects the audible voice of the person so protected. Current research has already shown an effect on the attenuation of the spoken word, a subconscious increase in effort when covering the mouth respectively, as well as the effect on articulation change when using contact mouth covers. It has been shown that the special group are the transparent (non-contact) plastic shields. In the specific frequency range, on the contrary, the intensity of voice radiation by the respondents increases. In this paper, we focus on explaining this phenomenon using measurement and numerical methods. © 2021 Author(s).