Experimental study on combined effect of Shinkansen railway noise and vibration on daily activities: A case of reading and calculation tasks

Abstract

Two laboratory experiments were conducted to investigate the combined effect of Shinkansen (high-speed) railway noise and vibration on daily life. In Experiment 1, stimuli noise and vibration recorded outdoors were used, and in Experiment 2, those recorded indoors were used. Twenty participants were exposed to 18 stimuli comprising 9 pairs of noise and vibration in Experiment 1, whereas 20 different participants were exposed to 22 stimuli comprising 11 such pairs in Experiment 2. The results indicated that there was significant activity disturbance from the combined effect of noise and vibration; however, the influence of vibration stimuli at 65 dB or less did not disturb reading.