Predicting annoyance from detectability of low-level sounds

Abstract

The relationship between the predicted detectability and judged annoyance of 24 low-level sounds heard in three noise backgrounds was investigated by an adaptive paired comparison procedure under free-field listening cojditions. The predicted detectability of the set of sounds acco nted for almost 90= per−cent)= of the variance in judgments of anjoyance made in the most commonplace (falling spectru ) background noise environment. Conventional methods of predicting annoyance did not yield significantly higher correlations than a detectability-based method in two other unusually shaped background noise environments.