How many psycho-acoustic attributes are needed

Abstract

Sounds may be characterized by objective perceptive attributes (for which there may exist physical metrics) or by subjective (affective or connotative) attributes. This paper will deal with the perceptive attributes. Within product sound quality the metrics for classical the psycho-acoustic attributes (loudness, sharpness, roughness and fluctuation strength) -maybe supplemented with tone and impulse prominence- are often used as the only attributes to characterize the sounds. But are these 4-6 attributes or dimensions sufficient to characterize a sound? Within room acoustics and reproduced sound many other attributes are used and in the language around 100 direct sound describing words may be found. This paper will give an overview over attributes used within different acoustic areas. The latter part of the paper will discuss the role of sensory evaluation methods as a means to systematically developing attributes for the objective qualification and quantification of sound characteristics.