Audio recordings are often used to improve ecological validity of stimuli for laboratory research on effects of noise. In this paper a method is proposed for composing realistic environmental sound stimuli with (1) specified overall spectrum and (2) specified statistical distribution of sound event durations and semantic categories. The combination is addressed as a mixed integer linear programming problem. Objective measurements, for eight stimuli and a moderate-size database, validate the method. The mean error in octave bands exposure level is 2.6 dB and the statistical distribution of sound event durations and semantic categories is perfectly matched.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.