Noise in your web browser: An online listening study regarding the perceived annoyance due to impact sounds

Abstract

Laboratory listening studies are typically limited in the number of people who can participate because of the effort that is involved in setting up and carrying out the experiment for each participant. This effort has significantly increased since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic due to the heightened public health requirements for in-person studies. This increase in effort and the resulting limit on the number of participants can be avoided by implementing the listening study as an online interface, where participants can then run the experiment from the comfort of their home and anyone who has access to a computer and headphones is able to participate. Such an approach supports the goal of involving the general public, who are the ultimate target audience for the research outcome. This contribution presents the preliminary results of an online listening study assessing the perceived annoyance due to impact sounds in residential buildings. The interface was previously validated and presented (Internoise 2021) with limited data. Since then, the survey has been published online for worldwide access. The results are discussed in relation to the results of previous laboratory studies.