Tactical hearing protection for home defense - Page 2

WW2 · November 24, 2009, 07:50 PM

http://www.audiologyonline.com/Artic...article_id=296

Blue Steel · November 25, 2009, 03:35 PM

Quote:

Some of Hasan's victims in the Ft. Hood shooting report being deafened by the shots. One victim went to cover but peeked up to see what was going on because he couldn't hear anything at all after the first burst of shots. He was shot when he looked up. Clearly his situational awareness was impaired by the deafening effect of the shots and his injury was likely a result of his not being able to tell what was going on without moving and giving away his position. Obviously there was no opportunity to use hearing protection in such a situation but it does point out that shots can deafen a person and that being deaf in a life or death situation can put you at a huge disadvantage.

We also have to considered perceptual distortions, including auditory exclusion, as a factor in this example. A survey of police officers for the book Deadly Force Encounters documented some of the most common distortions. 85% of those surveyed reported diminished sound/auditory exclusion. These issues are also discussed in the excellent book On Combat by LtCol Dave Grossman at www.killology.com

As far as the electronic muffs, I would have to have a lot of time trying them out before I would trust them in a life/death situation. If I was sure I could rely on them, then I might go to them in a "bump-in-the-night" type scenario.

Glenn E. Meyer · November 25, 2009, 05:35 PM

Beside perceptual distortions, there are memory distortions. You might have heard the shots but not remembered them later. There's some stuff out there (at work) that indicates that during an incident your time perception doesn't distort as commonly thought but you remember it in a distorted manner given what you focus on.

Remember the experiments where folks don't detect a gorilla strolling through a ball game. It's quite possible that since you don't expend any effort to remember the shots, even if heard, that your later reconstruction of memory is that you didn't hear them.

Folks seem absolutely clueless on number of shots fired under stress, for example.

Last as said before, perceptual narrowing so you don't perceive or remember the shots means nothing to your hair cells in the cochlea. They still get damaged.

November 24, 2009, 07:50 PM	#26
WW2 Senior Member Join Date: January 7, 2009 Location: Southern California. Posts: 254	Interesting article about using plugs and muffs... http://www.audiologyonline.com/Artic...article_id=296

November 25, 2009, 05:35 PM	#28
Glenn E. Meyer Senior Member Join Date: November 17, 2000 Posts: 20,064	Beside perceptual distortions, there are memory distortions. You might have heard the shots but not remembered them later. There's some stuff out there (at work) that indicates that during an incident your time perception doesn't distort as commonly thought but you remember it in a distorted manner given what you focus on. Remember the experiments where folks don't detect a gorilla strolling through a ball game. It's quite possible that since you don't expend any effort to remember the shots, even if heard, that your later reconstruction of memory is that you didn't hear them. Folks seem absolutely clueless on number of shots fired under stress, for example. Last as said before, perceptual narrowing so you don't perceive or remember the shots means nothing to your hair cells in the cochlea. They still get damaged. __________________ NRA, TSRA, IDPA, NTI, Polite Soc. - Aux Armes, Citoyens