STARTLE EFFECT AND THE PERCEIVED NOISINESS OF PERIODICALLY INTERMITTENT SOUNDS : A Study on the Evaluation of the Noisiness of Sounds-I
- 1 January 1978
- journal article
- Published by Architectural Institute of Japan in Transactions of the Architectural Institute of Japan
- Vol. 274, 85-92
- https://doi.org/10.3130/aijsaxx.274.0_85
Abstract
Periodically intermittent noises are sometimes designated as the major irritants of our society. The perceived magnitude of these sounds, however, cannot satisfactorily be evaluated by the established methods. Through two psycho-acoustical experiments described here the author tries to quantify the perceived noisiness of periodically intermittent sounds in comparison with that of steady sounds. In the first experiment eight trained subjects compared, by the paired camparison method, the noisiness of 25 patterns of intermittent sounds with that of steady sound. Several interesting findings were obtained by this experiment, which were organized in a proposal named the Perceived Noisiness Model of Periodically Intermittent Sound 75-A. In the second experiment 34 untrained subjects were used in a paired comparison experiment to validate the Model 75-A. The result was successful and the model was validated. Proposals and related discussions can be summarized as follows; 1) Consideration for the startle effect is indispensable to the proper evaluation of periodically intermittent sounds with impulsive nature. 2) Most of the established methods lead us to a considerable underestimation of these sounds. 3) The perceived noisiness of these sounds can be quantified by the cumulative contributions of the energy effect, the positive startle effect, and the negative startle effect.Keywords
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