MobiLab - A Mobile Laboratory for On-Site Listening Experiments in Virtual Acoustic Environments

Research in the last decades has pointed out negative effects of noise on cognitive processing and general health. Depending on the frequency and level of exposure as well as individual shielding potential, risk groups like children or elderly people may be particularly vulnerable to commonly known consequences including a reduced attention span, influencing the learning success during education, increased blood pressure and cardiovascular problems or sleep disturbances. To better understand the susceptibility to noise, specifically designed listening experiments in controlled laboratory environments are indispensable but might put high demands on older study participants whose travel expenses to test locations could increase due to reduced mobility. For children, organizational issues like insured transport and supervision during waiting periods, necessitating additional resources, need to be resolved. In order to facilitate practical and efficient study execution, we therefore implemented a mobile hearing laboratory by acoustically optimizing the interior of a caravan. All necessary technical facilities were integrated to perform listening experiments in virtual acoustic environments under controlled conditions directly on site, for example, in front of schools or senior residential centers. The design and construction of this laboratory are presented here and evaluated through acoustic measurements.