Re-Inventing Anthropometry for Design of Ear-Mounted or Ear-Coupled Products

Anthropometry of the external ear provides basic data for ergonomic design of products that must fit the ear. However, many published documents on ear anthropometry present unclear descriptions, illustrations and titles for dimensions and landmarks. Reports on ergonomics-related ear anthropometry are few and limited in scope whereas pertinent medical documents are more numerous and often include more dimensions but have limited statistical information. To overcome such problems, ongoing work on expanded concepts for delimiting conditions of anthropometric dimensions was re-focused on ear anthropometry (1) in a document on guidelines for naming terminology and illustrations and (2) in a dictionary of delimiting conditions distilled from a general dictionary. Pertinent references were compiled into two new bibliographies. A translation of extracts from a medical thesis and anthropometric studies of audition devices are also described. Three illustrations from outstanding publications are presented.