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The occlusion effect occurs when an object fills the outer portion of a person's ear canal, and that person perceives "hollow" or "booming" echo-like sounds of their own voice. It is caused by bone-conducted sound vibrations reverberating off the object filling the ear canal. When talking or chewing, these vibrations normally escape through an open ear canal; most people are unaware of their existence. When the ear canal is blocked, the vibrations are reflected back toward the eardrum. Compared to a completely open ear canal, the occlusion effect can boost low frequency (usually below 500 Hz) sound pressure in the ear canal by 20 dB or more. This effect can be measured with a probe-tube microphone.
Blood pressure monitoring via in-ear device
An in-ear device (IED) of a wearable system captures audio data from within the ear canal of a user indicative of the user's heartbeat. The IED when worn occludes the user's ear canal, causing amplification of low frequency sounds due to the occlusion effect, and improving the ability of the acoustic sensor to detect the user's heartbeat sounds. The wearable system classifies the audio data to identify portions of the audio data corresponding to a first heart sound and a second heart sound, which correspond to different portions of the heartbeat of the user. The wearable system estimates a blood pressure level of the user based upon the identified heart sounds.
Owner:META PLATFORMS TECHNOLOGIES LLC