Thursday 9-12

The Sound of Chewing with Open or Closed Mouth Kristine Bunker 12/8/12 2.671 Measurement and Instrumentation Dr. Mojtaba Azadi

Abstract The goal of this experiment was to determine the difference between chewing with ones mouth open and mouth closed in order to encourage proper etiquette of eating with ones mouth closed. To do this a sound level meter was used to measure the sound of chewing bread, pretzels, and carrots with mouth open and mouth closed. This data was then analyzed to find the difference in maximum sound levels between chewing with mouth open and closed. The difference in maximum sound level between mouth open and closed was 0.81.0dB for bread, 4.12.2dB for pretzels, and 6.44.1dB for carrots. However the time to reach ambient sound level did not change between chewing with mouth open and closed. The difference in sound level shows that in order to not disrupt those around oneself, one should chew with his or her mouth closed. 1. Introduction The following experiment was designed to compare the sound produced from chewing with ones mouth open and mouth closed. As a baseline food, bread was used to get a general difference in sound level between ambient and chewing. Bread does not result in any crunch when being eaten, so it created a baseline for just the sound of chewing itself. Then a dry crunchy food, pretzels, and a wet crunchy food, carrots, were eaten with mouth open and closed. To measure the sound level of the noise produced a Vernier Sound Level Meter (SLM) was used. The SLM collected the decibel of the sound which was then analyses. The maximum sound level was found as well as finding the best fit for the exponential decay of the sound level of the chewing. Using this function, the time to reach the ambient sound level was determined. The results were then compared to conclude whether or not it was important to eat with ones mouth closed in social settings. A more in depth explanation of the sounds produced while chewing can be found in Section 2. This is followed by the procedure taken in Section 3. The results will be discussed in Section 4 and conclusions drawn in Section 5. 2. Sound Levels and the Human Ear The human ear responses to sensations on a logarithmic scale of intensity 1 . As sound levels increase linearly, we hear the change logarithmically. Therefor any differences in the amplitude of the sound wave produced are amplified by our ears exponentially. Crunchy foods can be charted on a scale from dry-crunchy to wet-crunchy based on their cell structure. The mechanism that produces sound when chewing wet-crunchy foods is different from that when chewing drycrunchy foods. This is due to the fact that wet-crunchy foods are made up of plant cells while dry-crunchy foods are usually comprised of cells that are brittle. The sound pressure wave in wet-crunchy foods is produced by the internal pressure of the plant cell, and that of dry-crunchy food is due to the snap back of the remainder of the broken cell walls 1 . In addition to the different sounds produced with wet and dry crunchy foods, the sounds that we hear differ due to the characteristics of the jaw, teeth, and tissues in the mouth. Bone conducts the sound that is traveling through the teeth and jaws to the ears. On the other hand the soft tissue absorbs some of the higher frequency sounds. For this reason when chewing with ones mouth closed the sound level is decreased 1 . Now to give some reference of sound levels typically experienced in a classroom environment to compare the sound levels measured while chewing. Speech levels tend to be in

Kristine Bunker, 12/5/2012

the range of 43.0-59.0dB with an average of 50.8dB depending on the classroom setting, gender of the lecturer, and length of lecture 2 . Student activity levels ranged from 30.0-50.2dB with an average of 41.9. Student activity includes students taking notes, whispering throughout the class, and general movement. Ventilation noise levels (ambient noise) ranged from 32.6-47.0dB with an average of 40.9dB 2.

3. Measuring the Sound Level of Chewing 3.1 Sound Level Meter To measure the sound level due to chewing a Vernier Sound Level Meter (SLM) was used. The SLM was hooked up to the Lab Pro which was connected to a computer running LoggerPro. The subject sat at a desk with the SLM located one foot away from his or her chest level. The SLM was set to pick-up the range of 30~80dB because this was the expected range of values for chewing, it was also set to read DC, Weighting A (which is the setting for human hearing), and Response Max Hold. 3.2 Food Used The foods used to compare the noise level of chewing with mouth open or closed were all of approximately the same shape and size to eliminate any differentiation due to those factors. Two different types of crunchy foods were used, carrots (wet-crunchy) and pretzels (drycrunchy), as well as a soft food, bread, to determine the general sound level of chewing.

Fig 1: The three foods carrots, pretzels, and bread used were approximately the same shape and size.

3.3 Taking Measurements Once the SLM has been set up with the computer and the food prepared, the subject started with one of the food items. In order to get the most accurate readings from the SLM, the sampling rate is set at 20Hz. Each sample was 15 seconds long to get a significant portion of the

Kristine Bunker, 12/5/2012

chewing. To start five samples were taken, with no chewing, to determine the ambient sound level. This value ensured that nothing major was changing in the testing environment as well as set a sound level to compare the chewing sound level to. After the five tests for the ambient sound level were taken, the mean of each run as well as for all the data was calculated. The ambient sound level in the testing environment was 36.751.30dB. Once subject started the data collection, he or she put the food sample in his or her mouth, and started chewing. The subject then continued to chew with his or her mouth open or closed (depending on the test) for 15 seconds. After 15 seconds the subject could finish chewing however he or she would like before starting the next test. For each type of food ten tests were taken with mouth open and ten with mouth closed. 3.4 Analysis of Measurements Once the data was collected the peak sound levels for each test throughout the 15 seconds were extracted. Then an exponential decay function was fit to these peak values. The amplitude of the exponential decay function was based upon fitting to the maximum sound level for each test. = + (1) Then using equation 1, the time the sound level takes to reach ambient noise level can be calculated by plugging in the ambient sound level, 36.75dB, and solving for t, time.

4. Results and Discussion For each of the food samples, chewing with mouth open had a higher maximum sound level than with mouth closed.

Fig 2: For all 3 types of food the maximum sound level of chewing was larger when chewing with mouth open.

Kristine Bunker, 12/5/2012

Bread Open Sound Level (dB) Sound Level (dB) 38.10.7 Closed 37.30.7 Open

Carrots Closed 68.02.7

Pretzels Open 64.31.1 Closed 60.21.9

74.41.6

0.81.0

6.43.1

4.12.2

Fig 3: The calculated maximum values for sound level for each of the food samples

The sound level produced with chewing bread was too small to see an exponential decay trend for the maximum noise sound level, so for bread, as with ambient level produced while chewing was calculated as the mean of the measured values. The sound level of chewing with mouth closed was 37.30.7dB while the sound level of bread with mouth open was 38.10.7dB. This measurement was not much higher than the ambient sound level of 36.81.3dB. This measurement shows that even with a soft food such as bread there is a difference between sound level when chewing with mouth open and mouth close, however it is such a small difference (0.81.0dB) that both values of chewing actually fall within the uncertainty of ambient sound level. For the chewing of carrots and pretzels an exponential decay function was fit to the data with the extracted peak sound levels.

80 Sound Level (dB) 70 60 Exponential Fit 50 40 30 0 5 Time (sec) Fig 4: The raw data collected from each run was plotted, then the local peak sound levels were
extracted. Using these data points, an exponential decay function was fit to the data.

Data Collected Peak Sond Levels

10

15

Kristine Bunker, 12/5/2012

This method for fitting the exponential decay function was repeated for test run, and these values were then compiled to obtain the average exponential decay function for each type of food and chewing method.

The exponential decay function found for chewing carrots with mouth closed was = 36 . + 35.75 and the time to reach ambient sound level was 32.570.68 seconds. For chewing carrots with mouth closed, the exponential decay function was = 45 .11 + 35.75. The time to reach ambient was calculated to be
34.610.32 seconds. This can be seen in Figure 5 where the thinner lines are the standard deviation for the peak sound level decay.

85 80 75 Sound Level (dB) 70 65 60 55 50 45 40 35 0 10 20 Time (sec) 30

Ambient Sound Level

Carrots Open Carrots Closed

40

Fig 5: The time to reach ambient sound level when chewing carrots with mouth open or closed was
approximately the same, around 33 seconds.

Kristine Bunker, 12/5/2012

The exponential decay function found for chewing pretzels with mouth closed was = 29 . + 35.75 and the time to reach ambient sound level was 22.440.44 seconds. For chewing pretzels with mouth closed, the exponential decay function was = 30 .15 + 35.75. The time to reach ambient was calculated to be
22.670.24 seconds. This can be seen in Figure 6 where the thinner lines are the standard deviation for the peak sound level decay.

70

65

60 Sound Level (dB)

55 Pretzel Open 50 Pretzel Closed

45

40
Ambient Sound Level

35 0 10 20 Time (sec) 30 40

Fig 6: The time to reach ambient sound level when chewing pretzels with mouth open or closed was approximately the same around 22.5 seconds. Carrots Open Time to reach Ambient (sec) 34.610.32 Carrots Closed 32.570.68 Pretzels Open 22.670.24 Pretzels Closed 22.440.44

Fig 7: Summary of time to reach ambient sound level while chewing carrots and pretzels.

The time it takes for the sound level to decrease to ambient sound level is the essentially the same for chewing with mouth open and mouth closed, however the difference in maximum noise level is large enough to hear the difference when eating crunchy foods, whether they are wet-crunchy or dry-crunchy.

Kristine Bunker, 12/5/2012

5. Conclusions There is a significant difference in sound level between chewing crunchy foods with mouth open or mouth. It does not take longer to reach the ambient sound level because the time is only a function of the material properties of the food and hence the mechanics of the sound wave produced. Due to the absorption of sound frequencies from the soft tissue when chewing with ones mouth closed there is a decrease in sound level 1 . The difference in sound level increases as the food gets crunchier as can be seen with the 0.8dB difference in sound level with bread compared to the 6.4dB and 4.1dB difference measured in carrots and pretzels respectively, which also show that the difference gets larger as the crunchy food moves from dry-crunchy to wet-crunchy. Comparing these numbers to those of ambient classroom sounds, it can be concluded that chewing with ones mouth closed does make a large. Ambient classroom noise and student activity levels were all in the range of 30-50dB 2. For this experiment, the ambient sound level measured was 36.75dB, so it fits that of a classroom setting. In conclusion, people would be more careful to chew with their mouths closed. In the future, I would be interested to try the same experiment with additional types of food. With this data it may be possible to find the actual relationship between difference in sound level with mouth open and closed and where on the scale of dry-crunchy to wet-crunchy the food lies. Additionally, adding more subjects to the test would indicate if the difference in sound level depends on the subjects. With better instrumentation, it may also be possible to see the frequency of the bone vibrations and it differs with the crunchiness of the food.

Acknowledgments I would like to thanks Dr. Mojtaba Azadi for helping me understand the best way to analyze and measure the data I needed for this project.

Work Cited 1. De Belie N, Sivertsvik M, De Baerdemaeker J. Differences in chewing sounds of dry-crisp snacks by multivariate data analysis. J Sound Vibrat. 2003;266(3):625-643.

2. Hodgson M, Rempel R, Kennedy S. Measurement and prediction of typical speech and background-noise levels in university classrooms during lectures. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. 1999;105(1):226-233.

Kristine Bunker, 12/5/2012