The perception of product sound quality

Abstract

There are different methods and methodologies available to assess the quality of sounds. Generally, instrumental and auditory assessment can be distinguished. For instrumental assessment, physical data are collected and analyzed, and a sound quality value is computed in the end. Auditory assessment methods use human listeners who judge on the quality of a perceived sound. Experts very often face the fact that instrumental and auditory quality values are not in accordance with each other. This holds especially for the case where instrumental methods are used to predict how a human listener will perceive the quality of a sound. It is the task of sound quality assessment research to abridge the gap between predicted and experienced sound quality. There are different approaches to reach this goal. The talk concentrates on one specific aspect, namely on the function of sounds. Sounds convey a meaning. The meaning is assigned to them by the listener. The relation between form and content is either arbitrary or fixed. Instrumental and auditory sound quality assessment have to consider these aspects: An appropriate assessment of sound quality has to include the aspects of the acoustic/auditory form, the listener, and the meaning he/she assigns to the auditory event.