A method for psychological evaluation of external nonwhite noise when listening to audio signal based on fuzzy sets theory

Abstract

AbstractRecently, quality improvement of housing and the living environment has become a priority issue. the quality improvement of the acoustic field in a direct voice transmission as a fundamental method of information transmission is no exception. It is important to realize an acoustical environment in which the audience can concentrate on hearing sound without distraction due to external noise. the relationship between the voice signal and the external noise has been studied extensively by a number of researchers, thus significant achievements have been reported. Most of the results, however, have more or less focused on the voice signals from the viewpoint of perception and understanding of the voice with respect to the masking effect and articulation.This paper differs from these studies in the following two aspects. First, the intent is to evaluate the external noise instead of the voice signal. Second, the sensory evaluation is based on the subjective judgment of human beings. the fuzziness necessarily associated with the subjective quantity is taken into account from the outset. Specifically, by using the fuzzy theory, this paper studies the problem of estimating or predicting the psychological judgment of the audience when meaningless nonwhite noise with an arbitrary power spectrum enters externally. the validity of the method proposed here is verified by means of the measured data from an indoor psychological experiment.