Multidimensional characteristics of annoyance perception to tonal building mechanical noises

Abstract

Tones in noises from building mechanical systems can be a leading cause of complaints in an indoor environment. One of the greatest challenges to quantifying annoyance perception from these noises is the lack of information on how assorted acoustic characteristics relate to perceptual annoyance. Recent evidence suggests that annoyance perception by noises should be treated as a multidimensional rather than a unidimensional problem. Thus, the aim of this study is to explore multidimensional aspects of annoyance perception specific for building mechanical noises with tonal components. Tone frequency, tonal strength, presence of harmonics, and time fluctuation characteristics are investigated using actual noise recordings as well as artificially synthesized signals. Two subjective tests were implemented with the noise signals. Part A of the experiment is designed to identify prevailing acoustic characteristics for annoyance perception. The dominant acoustic characteristics were determined by multidimensional scaling analysis technique. A multidimensional annoyance model is subsequently proposed based on the test results. Part B is conducted to specifically investigate perceptual weighting of individual tones to overall contributions towards annoyance perceptions when complex tones are present in signals. The results of this test help to increase the accuracy of the developed annoyance model.