Effects of expectation on auditory impression of car door-closing sounds

Abstract

If consumers have preconceptions or expectations about a product, these may influence their evaluation of the product sound. In this study, a psychoacoustic experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of preconception about the product on the perceived quality of the product sound. First, participants were presented with information about three different classes of cars (kei car, economy car and luxury car), including pictures, prices and displacements, and were asked to imagine the door-closing sound of each class of car, and evaluate the auditory imagery of door-closing sounds recalled from the three types of car information using the semantic differentials method. Next, five door-closing sounds were presented, assuming that they were the sounds of each car type. Participants rated perceived quality of stimuli using the same method. As a result, the stimulus of a kei car presented as the door-closing sound of a luxury car was rated as more luxurious than the same stimulus presented as that of a kei car. Similar results were obtained for the stimulus of a luxury car. These results indicate the effect of preconceptions (or expectations) on the auditory impression of the door-closing sounds.