Multiple Ratings of Sound Stimuli

Abstract

Sixteen brief sounds (music, vehicle sounds, and artificial sounds) were judged on each of 15 bipolar scales by 20 subjects. Without instructions, subjects use the descriptors “loud” and “noisy” as synonomous. On the other hand, subjects do not equate either loudness or noisiness with acceptability, although there appears to be a moderate relationship when only vehicle or aircraft sounds are rated by subjects. The implications of these findings for instructions in psychoacoustic research are discussed.

Development of Indicators for the Soundscape in Urban Shopping Streets

“…[30] Through a factor analysis process, the semantic scales could be divided into several groups which indicated the major perceptual factors of soundscape perception. Earlier studies focused on individual sounds [26,27] and then expanded to environmental sounds. Four essential factors were found in residential areas: adverse, reposing, affective and expressionless [28].…”

“…A psychological method was introduced into urban soundscape studies to describe how people perceive the sound environment, which is the semantic differential method [25]. In the past decade, the semantic differential method has been proved to be a useful method in identifying the perception structure of a sound environment [26,27,28].…”

Implementation of Bipolar Adjective Pairs in Analysis of Urban Acoustic Environments

“…The experimental research methodology postulates the manipulation of one independent variable, in this case -sudden and unexpected changes in loudness, while other variables are kept constant for both the experimental group and the control group [20,25,26]. The two groups represent independent samples on which statistical significance can be established.…”

“…Among researchers there is also no clear consensus yet regarding the soundscape terminology and choices of bipolar adjectives [19,20,[23][24][25][26]. In particular, the issues arise in the selection criteria for bipolar adjectives used, which is accompanied by the question of universal applicability due to loss of certain semantic nuances in translation and determining proper statistical approach.…”

Measuring human aversion to sound without verbal descriptors

“…In the vast majority of these psychophysical studies, some sort of verbal descriptor like "loud," "noisy," "unpleasant," "unacceptable," etc., has been employed to define the response required of the Ss. In addition to certain semantic inconsistencies demonstrated by Kerrick, Nagel, and Bennett (1968), the use of such verbal descriptors makes comparison with behavioral studies involving animals extremely difficult.…”