Multi-cultural perception of impact sound -- An international online listening survey about the perceived annoyance due to impact sounds

Abstract

To support the introduction of requirements for protection from impact noise in the National Building Code of Canada, the National Research Council of Canada implemented pilot subjective evaluations of impact sounds to evaluate the best metric to be used in the Code. As an alternative to the typical laboratory-based listening experiments, online-based listening tests were used. The ability to collect data with an online survey allows to reach the general public much more than with any laboratory-based experiment, and it was especially relevant in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, which forced researchers to re-evaluate in-person procedures. This online listening survey was published for world-wide access, enabling data collection across a diverse target audience in many parts of the world. The survey and its preliminary results are presented and discussed in this paper. Data collected as part of the online survey, such as the person's country of residence and the type of dwelling they lived in, is used to explore the multicultural effects on the annoyance ratings.