HONOLULU, Dec. 4, 2025 — The world is loud. A walk down the street bombards one's ears with the sound of engines revving, car horns blaring, and the steady beeps of pedestrian crossings. While smartphone alerts to excessive sound and public awareness of noise exposure grows, few tools help people take protective action.
To address this gap, Santino Cozza and a team from Applied Research Associates, Inc. developed the Hearing Protection Optimization Tool (HPOT). HPOT was designed to move beyond traditional noise reductions ratings and highlight performance characteristics that matter in real-world conditions. This user-friendly software platform, which draws on years of research and operational insight, helps people select the appropriate hearing protection device (HPD) for their specific environment.
Cozza will present the software Thursday, Dec. 4, at 11:45 a.m. HST as part of the Sixth Joint Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America and Acoustical Society of Japan, running Dec. 1-5 in Honolulu, Hawaii.
"The underlying science of how humans perceive sound is complex, drawing from acoustics, psychology, and physiology," said Cozza. "We designed HPOT to translate that into something usable, empowering smarter, more personalized hearing protection."
HPOT asks users to share basic information about their noise environment, such as sound intensity and exposure duration. If measurements aren't available, the platform estimates exposure levels based on users' descriptions of their setting.
By combining noise exposure levels with algorithmic analyses of the benefits of different HPDs, HPOT matches users with a database of suitable, regulatory-approved HPDs. It translates complex acoustic and psychoacoustic factors and calculations, like insertion loss, speech intelligibility, and sound localization, into clear visuals that help users directly compare HPDs.
Users can toggle inputs for communication needs, mobility, cost, and power requirements to visualize trade-offs and optimize HPD selection for their preferences.
While HPOT was initially developed to support military hearing protection decisions, Cozza sees its utility as reaching far beyond that.
"Whether you're a hearing conservationist protecting workers, an audiologist trying to stay current with new technologies, or just someone choosing earplugs for a concert, HPOT was built to help," he said.
The team is currently developing advanced updates for the platform to widen its relevance, including support for impulse noise environments and integrating double hearing protection.
"HPOT is a blueprint for modernizing how personal protective equipment is selected," Cozza said. "We envision a future where intuitive, data-driven tools exist across all categories. Our goal is to simplify those processes using the same science-to-software approach that powers HPOT."
