Étienne Lombard was a French otolaryngologist and surgeon

Surgeon

In medicine, a surgeon is a specialist in surgery. Surgery is a broad category of invasive medical treatment that involves the cutting of a body, whether human or animal, for a specific reason such as the removal of diseased tissue or to repair a tear or breakage...

 who discovered the Lombard effect

Lombard effect

thumb|250 px|[[Great tit]]s sing at a higher frequency in [[noise pollution|noise polluted]] urban surroundings than quieter ones to help overcome the [[auditory masking]] that would otherwise impair other birds hearing their [[bird vocalization|song]]...

, in which a person's voice

Voice

Voice may refer to:* Human voice* Voice control or voice activation* Writer's voice* Voice acting* Voice vote* Voice message-In film:* Voice , a 2005 South Korean film* The Voice , a 2010 Turkish horror film directed by Ümit Ünal...

 is involuntarily

Involuntary

Involuntary is the antonym of voluntary. An involuntary action is one that occurs without volition or will; see volition and will . Involuntary may also refer to:*Involuntary , a 2008 Swedish film by Ruben Östlund...

 raised when speaking in a loud environment.

He was at the Lariboisiere Hospital

Lariboisière Hospital

Lariboisière Hospital is a hospital in the 10th arrondissement of Paris, France.The hospital was one of several built following the second cholera pandemic, which had reached Paris in 1832, and which led to a new emphasis on hygienic practices in hospitals...

, the first "oto-rhino-laryngologiste des Hopitaux" in France. He developed new surgical techniques and a new form of bone forceps. During World War I he researched the effects of air blasts upon 600 aviators but was unable to continue this research due to an illness that resulted in his early death.

The "symptom of the raised voice" was discovered in 1909. It was made possible by the invention of a device by the Viennese physician Robert Bárány

Robert Bárány

Robert Bárány was a Austro-Hungarian otologist. For his work on the physiology and pathology of the vestibular apparatus of the ear he received the 1914 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.- Biography :...

 that delivered an intense noise

Noise

In common use, the word noise means any unwanted sound. In both analog and digital electronics, noise is random unwanted perturbation to a wanted signal; it is called noise as a generalisation of the acoustic noise heard when listening to a weak radio transmission with significant electrical noise...

 to only one ear and so allowed the monaural

Monaural

Monaural or monophonic sound reproduction is single-channel. Typically there is only one microphone, one loudspeaker, or channels are fed from a common signal path...

 examination of the other ear. Using this device Lombard asked a person to start talking in conversation

Conversation

Conversation is a form of interactive, spontaneous communication between two or more people who are following rules of etiquette.Conversation analysis is a branch of sociology which studies the structure and organization of human interaction, with a more specific focus on conversational...

 while hearing noise. He found that when the noise began, the person spoke louder, and when the noise stopped, the voice returned to a normal level.^{pp. 678–680}

The finding was reported to the French Academy of Sciences

French Academy of Sciences

The French Academy of Sciences is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research...

 in August 1909, and the following year in April to the French Academy of Medicine. However, in 1910 German publications attributed this discovery to Robert Bárány, which led to a dispute in print between them. Priority was established when the English physician, Donald Schearer, described how he carried news of the discovery from Paris to Vienna in November 1909.^{pp. 677–678} Bárány received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine administered by the Nobel Foundation, is awarded once a year for outstanding discoveries in the field of life science and medicine. It is one of five Nobel Prizes established in 1895 by Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, in his will...

 in 1914, for other work.

Lombard's discovery is important for four reasons.

• It provides a means of detecting malingering
  Malingering
  Malingering is a medical term that refers to fabricating or exaggerating the symptoms of mental or physical disorders for a variety of "secondary gain" motives, which may include financial compensation ; avoiding school, work or military service; obtaining drugs; getting lighter criminal sentences;...
  
   by simulated hearing loss
• It underlies research into speech communication in noise (an important practical problem)
• It helps researchers understand how imitation and speaking are altered by auditory feedback
  Delayed Auditory Feedback
  Delayed Auditory Feedback , is a device that enables a user of the device to speak into a microphone and then hear his or her voice in headphones a fraction of a second later...
  
  
• It identifies a role in speech of processes involving servomechanism
  Servomechanism
  thumb|right|200px|Industrial servomotorThe grey/green cylinder is the [[Brush |brush-type]] [[DC motor]]. The black section at the bottom contains the [[Epicyclic gearing|planetary]] [[Reduction drive|reduction gear]], and the black object on top of the motor is the optical [[rotary encoder]] for...
  
  .