How ordering effects change with cursor placements on scales when evaluating annoyance levels of transient environmental sounds

Abstract

Sound ordering effects are the impacts of the last heard sound on the rating of the current sound when evaluating a group of signals in sequence. Previously, it was shown that such effects are more significant in evaluations of transient sounds than in evaluations of steady-state sounds. The goal of this study was to investigate whether initial cursor placement on the rating scale could strengthen or attenuate ordering effects. In the previous study, the cursor was placed in the middle for the first signal, and then was left at the place from the last rating. In this follow-up test with the transient sounds, the effect of three different cursor setting strategies was examined: (1) always at the left (indicating the least annoyance level), (2) at the place of the last rating (same as the previous test), and (3) randomly placed on the rating scale. Preliminary results show that the overall trends of sound annoyance ratings with the three cursor setting strategies are similar for most subjects, and results are similar to those in the previous test. However, for some subjects, left cursor placement tends to reduce those subjects’ annoyance ratings.