Typical sound level in environmental sound representations

Abstract

Although the sound level reaching a listener’s ear depends upon the sound source level and the environment, a stable source level can be perceived (McDermott et al., 2021). Nonetheless, variation in sound level can disrupt recognition in a short-term old/new task (Susini et al., 2019). We asked whether there is evidence of long-term memory of the typical level of everyday sounds. First, we found that listeners can report the level at which they typically hear a sound. Next, we compared sound judgements over headphones (ESC-50 dataset) across two conditions: (1) “typical”: levels set to produce the loudness experienced as “typical” for each sound (as determined by pilot studies); and (2) “equal”: levels at 70 dB SPL. Recognition, familiarity, and pleasantness were judged. There was no significant difference in recognition accuracy between level conditions and no interaction with whether sounds were louder or softer than their typical levels. In addition, recognition increased as sound familiarity increased, but this did not interact with level condition. Furthermore, consistent with past findings, sound pleasantness decreased as loudness increased, but this effect did not depend upon the condition. [Work supported by REAM.]