Effect of temporal decay on perception of heavy-weight floor impact sounds

Abstract

This study investigates the effect of temporal decay on perception of heavy-weight floor impact sounds through auditory experiments. Heavy-weight impact sounds were recorded in apartment buildings with a box-framed type reinforced concrete structure using a rubber ball. Temporal decay was quantified by using the decay rate (DR), defined as the sound pressure level (SPL) decrease per second [dB/s], and the distribution of DR for heavy-weight impact sounds was calculated. An auditory experiment was conducted in order to examine the just noticeable difference (JND) of DR, which was determined by the criteria of 75% correct answers by subjects. It was found that the JND of DR is around 11 dB/s. Based on the distribution and JND of DR, another experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of DR on annoyance perception of heavy-weight floor impact sounds in relation to the level differences. The results indicate that SPL and DR significantly influence annoyance perception; the scale value of annoyance increases with decreasing DR and increasing SPL. It was also found that the degree of satisfaction with regards to impact sounds can be improved by increasing DR, by controlling the sound field of the receiving room.

Review of acoustic comfort evaluation in dwellings: Part III—airborne sound data associated with subjective responses in laboratory tests

“…Only 11 papers met the requirements of this review: they offered comparison of results between airborne sound data and subjective responses, which is the subject of focus in this review. The other papers found were excluded because they concerned impact sound laboratory studies [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30] or field studies. [31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40] Other exclusion criteria were the year of publication and language: only articles published after 1980 in English were included.…”

Review of acoustic comfort evaluation in dwellings: part II—impact sound data associated with subjective responses in laboratory tests

“…Classification took place in two studies only. In Jeon et al, 5 98 subjects evaluated impact ball noise and the following three categories were proposed using an annoyance scale from 1 to 9: "Audibility" (1-3), "Disturbance" (4-6), and "Amenity" (7)(8)(9). In addition, in Jeon and Oh, 10 four classes were developed based on self-reported annoyance percentages (Class A-B, %A), and minimum SPL levels of the DR for every class were defined.…”

“…Finally, this review article includes 10 Asian studies, [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] 1 Canadian study, 12,13 and 4 European studies. [14][15][16][17] Requirements for inclusion of papers in this review were the comparison of results between impact sound measured data and subjective responses collected from tests in laboratory experiments.…”

“…Then, there are various types of building constructions and components, which provide different structural and acoustical conditions to the tenants. [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] Therefore, it is important to test the association of the acoustic data from measured results to self-report responses; that association is tested with statistical analyses comparing objective and subjective data in many studies in this review. Sometimes, alternative versions of standardized descriptors are suggested in order to achieve better agreement of acoustic data with subjective responses.…”

“…Then, there are various types of building constructions and components, which provide different structural and acoustical conditions to the tenants. 3–15…”