The University of Southampton
University of Southampton Institutional Repository

Public exposure to airborne ultrasound and very high frequency sound

Public exposure to airborne ultrasound and very high frequency sound
Public exposure to airborne ultrasound and very high frequency sound
Over the last decade, members of the public have complained of “high-pitched” sounds in public places causing adverse effects (e.g., headaches). Their reports were dismissed by colleagues, family, and friends, who could hear nothing, and by health care professionals and experts for arange of reasons, including assertions that airborne ultrasound could not affect humans because it mostly reflects off the skin and because the ultrasonic intensities in air are low. Those complaining were told that even if such sounds existed, the sounds could not be ultrasonic because“humans cannot hear above 20 kHz.” Faced with universal dismissals, in 2015, the concerned individuals consulte done of the authors, Professor Leighton. He published evidence that such tones existed (Leighton, 2016a), providedmethods for the public to detect them (Leighton, 2016a,b),identified a range of commercially available sources and others in development, outlined why the regulatory framework needed revisiting (Leighton, 2016a), and cast doubt on assertions that these high-frequency sources cannot cause adverse effects (Leighton 2017). Fletcher etal. (2018a,b) conducted human trials and interest grew around the world, including in a special issue in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (Leighton, 2018).International interest in this topic further increased with claims of ultrasonic attacks on the Cuban embassy (Leighton,2018). A scheme by which the public can distinguish such tones from, say, tinnitus was provided, as illustrated in the following case study.
1557-0215
17-26
Leighton, Timothy
3e5262ce-1d7d-42eb-b013-fcc5c286bbae
Lineton, Ben
1ace4e96-34da-4fc4-bc17-a1d82b2ba0e2
Dolder, Craig
b08350be-fd09-4049-95bd-06a9c157a8bc
Fletcher, Mark
f8486834-8579-4ad0-9804-60e10f2b0340
Leighton, Timothy
3e5262ce-1d7d-42eb-b013-fcc5c286bbae
Lineton, Ben
1ace4e96-34da-4fc4-bc17-a1d82b2ba0e2
Dolder, Craig
b08350be-fd09-4049-95bd-06a9c157a8bc
Fletcher, Mark
f8486834-8579-4ad0-9804-60e10f2b0340

Leighton, Timothy, Lineton, Ben, Dolder, Craig and Fletcher, Mark (2020) Public exposure to airborne ultrasound and very high frequency sound. Acoustics Today, 16 (3), 17-26. (doi:10.1121/AT.2020.16.3.17).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Over the last decade, members of the public have complained of “high-pitched” sounds in public places causing adverse effects (e.g., headaches). Their reports were dismissed by colleagues, family, and friends, who could hear nothing, and by health care professionals and experts for arange of reasons, including assertions that airborne ultrasound could not affect humans because it mostly reflects off the skin and because the ultrasonic intensities in air are low. Those complaining were told that even if such sounds existed, the sounds could not be ultrasonic because“humans cannot hear above 20 kHz.” Faced with universal dismissals, in 2015, the concerned individuals consulte done of the authors, Professor Leighton. He published evidence that such tones existed (Leighton, 2016a), providedmethods for the public to detect them (Leighton, 2016a,b),identified a range of commercially available sources and others in development, outlined why the regulatory framework needed revisiting (Leighton, 2016a), and cast doubt on assertions that these high-frequency sources cannot cause adverse effects (Leighton 2017). Fletcher etal. (2018a,b) conducted human trials and interest grew around the world, including in a special issue in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (Leighton, 2018).International interest in this topic further increased with claims of ultrasonic attacks on the Cuban embassy (Leighton,2018). A scheme by which the public can distinguish such tones from, say, tinnitus was provided, as illustrated in the following case study.

Text
Public-Exposure-to-Airborne-Ultrasound-and-Very-High-Frequency-Sound - Version of Record
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution.
Download (885kB)

More information

Accepted/In Press date: 21 July 2020
Published date: 1 September 2020

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 444416
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/444416
ISSN: 1557-0215
PURE UUID: 453cf928-6b6e-49a5-92be-1bf8490e42cc
ORCID for Timothy Leighton: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-1649-8750
ORCID for Ben Lineton: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-4784-7762
ORCID for Craig Dolder: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-0817-326X

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 19 Oct 2020 16:30
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 03:39

Export record

Altmetrics

Contributors

Author: Ben Lineton ORCID iD
Author: Craig Dolder ORCID iD
Author: Mark Fletcher

Download statistics

Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.

View more statistics

Atom RSS 1.0 RSS 2.0

Contact ePrints Soton: eprints@soton.ac.uk

ePrints Soton supports OAI 2.0 with a base URL of http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/cgi/oai2

This repository has been built using EPrints software, developed at the University of Southampton, but available to everyone to use.

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue without changing your settings, we will assume that you are happy to receive cookies on the University of Southampton website.

×