The Effectiveness of Tactical Communication and Protection Systems (TCAPS) on Minimizing Hearing Hazard and Maintaining Auditory Situational Awareness

In military environments, maintaining Auditory Situational Awareness (ASA) and providing protection from hearing hazard are often dueling priorities. Traditional passive hearing protection devices (HPD’s) can provide adequate protection to the soldier from impulsive and continuous noise hazards, but this can come at the cost of reduced ASA. Anecdotal reports indicate that many soldiers may forego HPD use entirely in an attempt to maximize ASA. However, unprotected ears can lead to temporary threshold shifts (TTS) and permanent threshold shifts (PTS) that can be much worse for ASA than HPD use. Tactical Communication and Hearing Protection Systems (TCAPS) are active electronic systems that can provide a potential solution to this problem by giving the soldier protection, environmental hearing and radio communications. This paper discusses evaluating the effectiveness of these systems through objective measures of attenuation and subject human sound localization.