Sound masking, a new noise control technology, has been applied to improve subjective perception of noise in recent years. However, the neural mechanisms underlying this technology are still unclear. In this study, 18 healthy subjects were recurited to take subjective annoyance assessments and fMRI scanning with the aircraft noise and the masked aircraft noise. The results showed that the noise annoyance was associated with deficient functional connectivity between anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and prefrontal cortex and exceeded brain activation in ACC, which might be explained as compensation. The sound masking led to significantly strong activation in the left medial frontal cortex and right medial orbital frontal cortex, which were associated with happy emotion induced by sound masking. This study offered new insights on the underlying neural mechanisms of sound masking effects.

中文翻译：

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对飞机天桥噪声主观干扰的掩蔽效应：一项 fMRI 研究。

声音掩蔽是一种新的噪声控制技术，近年来被应用于改善噪声的主观感知。然而，这项技术背后的神经机制仍不清楚。在这项研究中，18 名健康受试者被重新召集，对飞机噪声和掩蔽飞机噪声进行主观烦恼评估和 fMRI 扫描。结果表明，噪音烦恼与前扣带回皮层 (ACC) 和前额叶皮层之间的功能连接缺陷有关，并且超过了 ACC 中的大脑激活，这可能被解释为补偿。声音掩蔽导致左侧内侧额叶皮层和右侧内侧眶额叶皮层的显着激活，这与声音掩蔽引起的快乐情绪有关。