Annoyance Ratings for Impulse and Traffic Sounds at Two Different Background Noise Levels

摘要

In the laboratory, 4 groups of 16 subjects rated the annoyance caused by 3 types of impulse sounds (regular and irregular gunfire noise and metal construction noise) and by traffic sounds, all presented in background noise. Results show that for lower levels of the sounds, an impulse noise correction of at least 10 dB is required, whereas for higher levels the derived correction is equal to the ISO/R 1996 penalty of 5 dB. This conclusion, based on the relation between Leq and annoyance ratings, is consistent with the correction based on Leq and the percentage of subjects who reported to be very much annoyed. For equivalent levels of the impulse sounds at which 33% of the subjects claimed to be very much annoyed, the correction is 10 or 5 dB, depending on whether the indoor Leq of the background noise was 35 of 55 dB(A). With this criterion of 33%, source-specific and total annoyance yield the same penalty for impulse noise.