Infrasounds are very common in the natural environment. There are various opinions about their harmfulness or lack of harmfulness. One of the reasons of increasing interest in this issue is that there are more and more wind farms appearing close to building estates which are undoubtedly a source of infrasound. It is reasonable to present the results of research of infrasound noise connected not only with wind farms. In this study own results of research of infrasound noise related to daily human activity are presented. The measurements were carried out during housework, travel to the office or shop, and during shopping. The results are shown in the form of values of equivalent levels and 1/3-octave analyses. Taking into consideration the natural sources of infrasound in the environment, the measurements were conducted during both windy and windless weather. On the basis of the results of the measurements it was possible to define the daily exposure to infrasound noise. Those results were also compared with the available in the literature threshold values sensed by people. Estimated level of exposure to noise beyond workplace together with the level of exposure to noise at work enables to define daily exposure level, which means a better assessment of risk of health loss. Increasing social awareness of acoustic threat in everyday life allows us to identify the problem and at the same time improve the quality of rest and efficiency at work.
Complaints and awareness about environmental low-frequency (LF) noise and infrasound (IS) have increased in recent years, but knowledge about perceptual mechanisms is limited. To evaluate the use of the brain’s frequency-following response (FFR) as an objective correlate of individual sensitivity to IS and LF, we recorded the FFR to monaurally presented IS (11 Hz) and LF (38 Hz) tones over a 30-phon range for 11 subjects. It was found that 11-Hz FFRs were often significant already at ~0 phon, steeply grew to 20 phon, and saturated above. In contrast, the 38-Hz FFR growth was relatively shallow and continued to 60 phon. Furthermore, at the same loudness level (30 phon), the 11-Hz FFR strength was significantly larger (4.5 dB) than for 38 Hz, possibly reflecting a higher phase synchronization across the auditory pathway. Overall, unexpected inter-individual variability as well as qualitative differences between the measured FFR growth functions and typical loudness growth make interpretation of the FFR as objective correlate of IS and LF sensitivity difficult.