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Loudness of Complex Sounds As a Function of the Standard Stimulus and the Number of Components Downloaded from orbit.dtu.dk on: Oct 02, 2021 Loudness of complex sounds as a function of the standard stimulus and the number of components Florentine, Mary; Buus, Søren; Bonding, Per Published in: Acoustical Society of America. Journal Link to article, DOI: 10.1121/1.382062 Publication date: 1978 Document Version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Link back to DTU Orbit Citation (APA): Florentine, M., Buus, S., & Bonding, P. (1978). Loudness of complex sounds as a function of the standard stimulus and the number of components. Acoustical Society of America. Journal, 64(4), 1036-1040. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.382062 General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Loudnessof Complexsounds as a functionof the standard stimulus and the number of components MaryFlorentine a) ENTDepartment, Gentofie University Hospital, 2900 Hellerup, Denmark qnd AcousticsLaboratory, Technical University of Denmark, 2800 Lyngby,Denmark S(/ren Buusb) ß4coastitS Laboratory. Technical University of Denmark,2800 Lyngby,Denmark Per Bonding ENT Department,Gentofie •niversity Hospital,2900 Hellerup, Denmarl( (Received15 lune 1977; revised10 April 1978) The purposeof this study was twofold:to determineif the measuredloudness level of a signaldepends on the standardstimulus used and to measureloudness as a functionof the numberof componentsin a wide- band signal.The stimuli were a pure tone, tone complexeswith frequencyseparations of 231 and 1592 Hz, and noi• bandswith widths of 220 and 1592 Hz. The centerfrequency was I kHz and the loudness level was approximately65 phons.Loudness matches between all combinationsof stimuli showedthat the measuredloudness of the soundsdid not dependon the standardstimulus used and the measuredloudness levelof a wide-bandsound increased as a functionof the numberof components.Individual observers were consistentin their loudnessestimations; the greatestsource of variabilitywas amongsubjects. Additional measurementsindicated that the rate at whichloudness incre. asexl beyond the critical band appeared to be greaterfor noisebands than for two-tonecomplexes. PACS numbers: 43.66.Cb INTRODUCTION tone complexes, and narrow-bandnoise. These stimuli have been compared in loudness to tone complexes or Zwicker and Feldtkeller (1955) showed that if the noise bands of various widths. The purpose of this p•- overall intensity of a noise band is held constant and per is twofold: to deterr•ine Lf the rate at which loud- bandwidth is increased, there is litfie or no change in ness increases beyond the critical band is dependent loudne.ssuntil the critical bandwidth is reached, after which loudness increases. The rate at which loudness upon the combination of stimuli used to measure loud- ness summation and to measure loudness as a function increases with bandwidth is most rapid at moderate in- of the number of components in a wide-band signal. tensities (Scha•f, 1959a; Zwicker and Feldtkeller, 1955; Zwicker• Flottorp, and Stevens, 1957). From I. EXPERMENT 1: LOUDNESS SUMMATION AS A. 1955 to the present, many experiments have examined FUNCTION OF STIMULUS COMBINATIONS loudness summation in order to measure the critical band. (For a review, see Scharf, 1970.) Althoughall A. Method these experiments are in reasonable agreement about I. Stimuli the width of the critical band at moderate intensities, they disagree about the rate at which loudness increases The loudnessof five soundswas investigated: a 1- with bandwidth or frequency separation beyond the crit- kHz pure tone, two-tone complexes with frequency sep- ical band. For example, some experiments reveal a arations of 231 and 1592 Hz, and bands of white noise slopeof 3-4 dB/ocf•of frequencyseparation beyond the 220 and 1592 Hz wide. All stimuli were centered geo- critical band for normal subjects (Niese, 1960; Port, metrically at 1 kHz. Limiting frequencies of the two- 1963; Zwickerand F•ldtkeller, 1955; Zwicker, Flot- tone complexes and the noise bands are given at the top torp, and Stevens, 1957), while other experiments re- of Fig. 1. The cutoff frequenci6sfor the noisebands veal slopes of 5-6 dB/oct at comparable intensities were the points at which the filter output was 3 ctB lower (Bonding, 1976; Florentine, 1977). The reason for this than the maximum output. All stimuli were 1 s in dura- difference in oblained slope beyond the critical band- tion with a rise-fall time of 35 ms. The fixed stimulus width is unclear. alternated with the adjustedstimulus; interstimulus in- terval was. 1 s. The componentsof the two-tone com- One difference amongexperiments is the type of plexes were set at equal intensity. Preliminary loud- stimulus used to measure loudness summation. The ness matches showedthat for each subject all compo- most frequently chosensland•rd stimuli are pure tones, nents were approximatelyequally loud whenequally in- tense. a)Currentaddress: ResearchLaboratory of Electronics, 2. Apparatus Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139. Pure tones were generated by four oscillators (Hew- b)Currentaddress: Auditory Perception Laboratory, Fsychol- lett-Packard 200 CD), the -•-oct noise bandwas gen- og• Department, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115. erated by passing the output from a white-noise genera- 1036 J. AcoustSo• Am. 64(4}.Oct. 1978 0001-4966/78/6404-1036500.80 ¸ 1978Acoustical Society of America 1036 1037 Florentine,Buts, and Bonding: Loudne. of complexsounds 1037 tar(Br//el & Kjaer1405) through a r-octI filter (Brilel 4. Subiec= & Kjaer 1612), and a 1600-Hz noiseband was playedvia Ten subjects,six malesand four females, were test- a tape recorder (Telefunken M10A). The 1600-Hz noise ed. Half of the subjectshad previousexperience bandwas produced by taperecording (Telefunken M10 A) ing equal-loudnessjudgments and the otherhalf hadno the outputof a white-noise generator (Briiel & KJaer previousexperience except for three practicematches 1405), after filtering by a Krohn-Hite variable-band before' the onset of data collection. Ages ranged from filter (3750). Filters attenuatedabout 9.4 dB/oct beyond 20 to 36 years. Somesubjects were paid for their ser- the half-power points. vices. All subjectshad normal otoscopyand history Dependingupon the experimental condition, a pure and their thresholds were within 10 dB of ISO standard. tone, two-tonecomplexes, or noisebands were sent to one or bothchannels by meansof routing switches. Af- B. R•ult• snd di•cu•ion ter amplification, the continuoussignals were gated, Results for all 25 matches by all ten subjects are attenuated,and then mixed. Bothchannels were identi- summarizedin Fig. 1. The level differencesneeded to cal except for a sonspotentiometer with a 60-dB range obtainequal loudness between the standard stimulus and .in the variable channel. The same Lestton timer which thecomparison stimulus are shownfor all combinations triggered the gates also tribered a shaper positioned of the five stimuli. The horizontal lines indicate the after the mixer. This arrangement assured that both meanvalues, the whitebars representthe interquartile signals had identical shape. Next, the signals were at- rangesand the black bars representthe total ranges. tenuated and led to a TDH-39 earphone mounted in a MX-41/AR ear cushion. The stimuli were measured An analysis of the means and the covarlance was per- andmonitored by anelectronic counter (Hewlett-Pack- formed on linear combinations of the data. The results ard 5223L), an oscilloscope(Tektronix 5103N), and a of theX- Y matchand the Y- X matchwere summed voltmeter (Br/iel & Kjaer 2603) which measured the rms for each individual observer. The mean of these linear voltages. combinationswas not significantly(p < 0.05) different from zero for any combinationof two signals. This showed that the results for each observer were sym- 3. Procedur• metrical. In other words, it did not matter which sig- In accordancewith a matrix design, eachof the five nal was the standard stimulus and which signal was the signalswas matched in loudnessto itself andto eachof comparison/•timulus. the other•ignais. The 25 matcheswere run in random Furthermare, a two-wayanalysis of variancere- order, with a different randomorder for eachsubject. vealed that observers show transitivity among all loud- Subjectswere instructedto pay attentiononly to the total ness matches. For each observer the sum of the level loudnessof the sigeals. First, the subject matchedthe. differences neededto obtain equal-loudn•.se among any otherfour si/nals in loudnessto the i-oct noise'band three signals approximateszero. Transitivity was con- set to 65 dB SPL. Then each signal was matched in firreed by the fact that the variability amongsubjects, loudness to itself and to each of the other signals. For obtainedby poolingdata for an X- Y matchfor all sub- these matches each standard stimulus
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