Influence of sonic noise on human stereoscopic depth perception

Scientific establishment of the no-effect response to finite levels of exposure to a physical or chemical agent is indeed a rigorous exercise and is frequently controversial. In earlier research by Slutsky under direction of the senior author, a statistically significant increase in stereoscopic depth perception error was noted among 24 test subjects exposed to high intensity noise. Additional extensive research reported in this paper indicates that error in stereoscopic depth perception is not significantly altered by exposure to continuous white noise of short duration at levels ranging from 70 to 115 dBA. Furthernore, exposure of humans for periods of a few minutes to white noise in octave bands centered on 250 Hz, 1000 Hz, 4 kHz and 16 kHz at 115 dB does not affect their depth perception measured by the Howard-Dolman test. A comprehensive analysis of depth perception errors measured under noise exposure conditions (n = 4040) in comparison with those obtained under control conditions (n = 1430) produced a mean change in error of -0.38 mm, a statistically insignificant difference (p = 0.17). Even if such an error were attributable to high level noise, it should be noted that minus sign designates an improvement of depth perception in noise and that it is difficult to imagine visual tasks in which change in error of +/-0.38 mm at a distance of 6.0 meters is meaningful.