The importance of different body parts for the (un-)pleasantness of whole-body vibration on an aircraft seat bench

Noise and vibration are two physical factors that can reduce the perceived comfort of passengers during a flight. To reduce the detrimental impact of seat transmitted vibration, it is necessary to understand which body parts and, thus, which corresponding seat parts are relevant for the pleasantness assessment. In this study, 40 participants (19 female, 21 male) rated the pleasantness of sinusoidal whole-body vibrations in the vertical direction while seated on a typical aircraft seat bench and listening to a synthetic broadband aircraft cabin noise over headphones. The vibration signals covered seven frequencies and four vibration levels, and pleasantness ratings were made on a verbally anchored scale. In addition, the participants separately marked those body parts that contributed significantly to their rating and those where they felt a vibration for each of the vibroacoustic stimuli. The results showed that not all body parts at which vibration were felt were also classified by the participants to reduce the ratings significantly, especially at higher vibration levels. A median split of the participants into groups of lighter and heavier participants indicates which body properties might be underlying factors for certain judgments.