On the level-dependent penalty for impulse sound.
At relatively low A-weighted equivalent levels (Leq), road-traffic sounds are rated to be less annoying than impulse sounds. The differences, however, decrease with increasing Leq of the sounds, which indicates that the penalty for impulse sound seems to be level dependent. It was questioned whether the decrease of the penalty with increasing Leq might, at least partly, have been a consequence of the use of the ten-point rating scale. In experiments 1 and 2, the relevance of the level-dependent correction was therefore studied further by using the method of adjustment. The mean results again showed that, at least for gunfire sounds (small arms), the penalty is level dependent. The drawing of firm conclusions, however, was hampered by a relatively large bias in the adjustments. In addition, the overall size of the penalty was lower than obtained in previous rating experiments. The question about the relevance of the level-dependent penalty was reopened in experiment 3 by applying the method of paired comparison. The results confirm the previous findings obtained with the rating experiments: For gunfire sounds at relatively low indoor Leq values, a penalty of about 10 dB is required, and a penalty lower than 5 dB can be applied only in conditions with rather high sound exposure. The results further showed that especially at indoor Leq values higher than about 45 to 50 dB(A), application of a negative penalty may become relevant for specific sounds such as those produced by the 0.50-in. machine gun. Consequently, acoustic measures from which to predict the value of the penalty are highly needed.
TNO Institute for Perception, Soesterberg, The Netherlands.
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D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008144:Loudness Perception; D008297:Male; D009622:Noise / Q000009:adverse effects*; D009624:Noise, Transportation / Q000009:adverse effects; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D011571:Psychoacoustics