Prediction of subjective annoyance for transient sounds using a loudness-based impulsiveness measure.

This paper presents a study on the characterization of the sound quality of transient sounds via fundamental psychoacoustic measures. Specifically, the overall subjective perception of annoyance for transient sounds was studied. Through magnitude estimation and paired comparison jury evaluation experiments, the subjective annoyance magnitudes of 15 transient sounds were determined. For each sound, several objective psychoacoustic measures were calculated, and using simple linear regression models, the relationships between these objective measures and the subjective annoyance magnitudes were investigated. Examined psychoacoustic measures included loudness, sharpness, roughness, fluctuation strength, tonality, and a new loudness-based measure of impulsiveness. The new impulsiveness measure is based on the summation of the magnitudes of impulse-induced peaks in the loudness time history for a sound (calculated according to DIN 45631/A1). The models were analyzed using several statistical measures of model significance and fit. It was found that for the transient sounds studied, significant relationships existed between subjective annoyance and each of the following psychoacoustic measures: loudness, sharpness, roughness, and loudness-based impulsiveness. These four measures were then combined into a single model for predicting subjective annoyance using multiple linear regression analysis. It was found that this model was highly correlated to the subjective annoyance of transient sounds.