Sound quality judgments of everyday sounds

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to determine the psychological dimensions that underlie listeners’ judgments of the qualities of everyday sounds and to identify the stimulus properties on which such judgments are based, using Osgoods’ semantic differential technique. A collection of 145 common sounds was presented to 32 listeners who rated the sounds on 20 seven-point rating scales. The sounds were of a variety of common objects and events (e.g., dishwasher, vacuum cleaner, door closing) as well as ambient sounds that sometimes involved several objects and events (e.g., traffic, cafeteria noise, rain). Rating scales included subjective adjective pairs (e.g., happy–sad, relaxed–tense) and objective pairs (e.g., hard–soft, large–small). A principal components analysis of the rating data indicated that average judgments of the listeners were associated with four dimensions, roughly corresponding to large–small, compact–scattered, harsh–mellow, and overall quality (high–low). However, the level of agreement across subjects varied considerably for the different sounds and rating scales. The relations between several static (averaged over the entire waveform) and dynamic (time-varying) stimulus properties and listeners’ judgments will be discussed. [Work supported by NIH/NIMH.]