Effect of low-frequency content on the rate of growth of annoyance of impulsive sounds

Abstract

Since useful field studies of the annoyance of high energy impulsive sounds are costly and difficult to conduct, comparatively little is known empirically about community response to high energy impulsive noise exposure. Several attempts have therefore been made to generalize the results of controlled exposure studies of the relative annoyance of impulsive and nonimpulsive noises to community-level analyses. Although such studies have yielded a range of level-dependent growth functions for the annoyance of impulsive sounds, it is commonly observed that the annoyance of impulsive sounds increases more rapidly with level than that of nonimpulsive signals. The findings of a recent set of paired comparison judgments, in which the very low-frequency content of sonic booms was accurately reproduced, suggest that the steep slope of human hearing sensitivity at low frequencies may provide a good account for the common observation, at least for the case of sonic booms. If this is so, then ad hoc ‘‘adjustments’’ to the annoyance of impulsive sounds based on rise time, crest factor, and similar waveform characteristics may be superfluous. [Study supported by U.S. Air Force Air Combat Command.]