A method to compare the prevalence of annoyance measured with different scales

摘要

Inconsistency on the definition of % highly annoyed as well as the use of various scales cause difficulties in comparing the outcomes among noise studies. The European Union's position paper recommended a transformation of various annoyance scales to a 0 to 100 basis and usage of a cut-off at the scale value 50 for % annoyed or 72 for % highly annoyed, respectively. Though ICBEN (International Commission on Biological Effects of Noise) proposed to use 5-point verbal and 11-point numeric scales in socio-acoustic surveys, generally either of the scales may be used. For example, Acoustical Society of Japan proposed a standardized questionnaire on living environment with only 5-point verbal scale. When only the 5-point verbal scale is used for surveys, it may be difficult to precisely compare the prevalence of annoyance with % highly annoyed extent (top 28%) accumulated so far. In this paper, a method is proposed to estimate % highly annoyed based on the top three of 11-point numeric scale (top 27%) from prevalence of annoyance based on 5-point verbal scale by using data sets obtained from socio-acoustic surveys carried out in Japan and Vietnam.