Experience and information content affect interior vehicle sound quality assessments (original) (raw)
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Affective evaluations of and reactions to exterior and interior vehicle auditory quality
Journal of Sound and Vibration, 2002
Affective reactions to and evaluations of auditory stimuli are fundamental components of human perception. In three experiments, participants rated their affective reactions (how pleasant I feel) and preferences for these affective reactions (how much I like the way I feel) as well as affective evaluations (how pleasant the sound is) to interior and exterior binaurally recorded vehicle sounds varying in physical properties. Consistent with previous research, it was found that the orthogonal affect dimensions of valence (unpleasant–pleasant) and ...
Wow, what car is that?: Perception of exterior vehicle sound quality
Noise Control Engineering Journal, 2003
Up until now most research and application in vehicle sound quality has been directed at describing interior vehicle sound quality. Even though the interior sound of a vehicle is a major component of the perceived sound quality, exterior sound is audible both to potential users and bystanders. It may be argued that interior vehicle sound quality is concerned with meeting the buyerʼs expectation, whereas exterior sound quality concerns a) attracting attention and positive responses of potential customers and b) minimizing negative responses in the general public. It may therefore be argued that optimizing exterior sound quality will benefit both consumers and the community. This article describes an approach to perceived exterior vehicle sound quality. To attain an understanding of exterior sound, we investigate both the semantic descriptions that are elicited when different exterior sounds are heard and specific situations (i.e. a given sound/vehicle in a given environment). Across different sounds and driving conditions we find four subjective dimensions: loudness/annoyance, perceived quality, low-frequency content, and temporal variations. This factor structure allows discriminating the sound quality of a variety of modern cars. In more specific tests we find that participants both discriminate between different vehicles and different environments (free field conditions, urban driving conditions as well as different street shapes). These results indicate that designing and predicting exterior sound quality is a multidimensional task that requires different approaches than those traditionally used for interior sound quality.
The emotional component in perceived quality of noises produced by car engines
International Journal of Vehicle Noise and Vibration, 2013
This study dealt with evaluation and paired comparison of noises of seven diesel cars running at idle. Participants evaluated noises' difference, indicated which one was the most appreciable, and verbally compared them when explaining the reasons of their choice. A systems method of analysis of free verbalisations allowed to quantitatively analyse the set of characteristics which are the most significant for the choice of the more pleasant sound. The results showed that emotional component was significantly present in the set of verbal characteristics of the noises' perceived quality and the 'weight' of this component in the set of evaluative characteristics was different for males and females as well as for participants with different experience of driving the investigated cars. The proposed verbal protocol analysis can be used by the supplier to evaluate influence of car noises and to identify the part of emotive attributes in their perceived quality.
Electric Vehicle Sound-Expert User Perception
ASME-DETC2013, 2013
As electric vehicles are moving in on the automobile market, safety relating to acoustic perception is an important issue. It is a growing concern, particularly with respect to pedestrians, cyclists or visually impaired people. This can be addressed by adding sounds to the vehicle whilst at low speed. However, adding artificial sounds to an electric vehicle begs the question as to what kind of sound is appropriate. Appropriateness concerns technical specifications and is also linked to affective reactions of recipients of such a sound. Emotional reactions to 17 artificial exterior sounds for electric vehicles were investigated in an experimental setting with a total of 40 participants, 34 novice users and six sound experts.
Effect of Tonal Harmonic Feature in Product Noise on Emotional Quality
2011
The product sound is an important factor that affects the product emotional quality. In the design of product sound quality, a designer needs to find the design factors that affect the emotional quality and determine the characteristics of their effects. The authors previously proposed a method for extraction of potential emotional factors by analyzing human sensitivity towards unexplored design and applied the method for designing product sound quality. From the result using vacuum cleaners as a case study, the authors found that the existence of prominent peak tones in sound has the potential to improve sound quality. However, prominent peak tones are usually regarded as a factor of annoyance. In this paper, we propose an indicator for adjusting the frequency and level of peak tones to improve a product sound quality. We have assumed that the harmonic features of peak tones in noise can be used as the indicator. We created vacuum cleaner sounds having three peak tones whose harmonic features such as tonal consonance and modality are different. To evaluate the effectiveness of the harmonic features, we conducted a pairwise comparison-based sensory evaluation with two groups of participants, one consisting of those who play some musical instrument and the other of those who do not. From the experiment, we found that the peak tone harmonic features can be perceived by both groups of participants and significantly decrease their annoyance at vacuum cleaner sounds.
2013
Electric vehicles are quiet at low speeds and thus potentially pose a threat to pedestrians' safety. Laws are formulating worldwide that mandate these vehicles emit sounds to alert the pedestrians of the vehicles' approach. It is necessary that these sounds promote a positive perception of the vehicle brand, and understanding their impact on soundscapes is also important. Detection time of the vehicle sounds is an important measure to assess pedestrians' safety. Emotional evaluation of these sounds influences assessment of the vehicle brand. Laboratory simulation is a new approach for evaluating exterior automotive sounds. This study describes the implementation of laboratory simulation to compare the detection time and emotional evaluation of artificial sounds for an electric vehicle. An Exterior Sound Simulator simulated audiovisual stimuli of an electric car passing a crossroad of a virtual town at 4.47 ms-1 (10 mph), from the perspective of a pedestrian standing at the crossroad. In this environment, 15 sounds were tested using experiments where participants detected the car and evaluated its sound using perceptual dimensions. Results show that these sounds vary significantly in their detection times and emotional evaluations, but crucially that traditional metrics like dB(A) do not always relate to the detection of these sounds. Detection time and emotional evaluation do not have significant correlation. Hence, sounds of a vehicle could be detected quickly, but may portray negative perceptions of the vehicle. Simulation provides a means to more fully evaluate potential electric vehicle sounds against the competing criteria.
Proceedings of the Human Factors Society Annual Meeting, 1992
The sensory environment of the vehicle is an area where customer expectations have greatly increased in recent years. For example, sound quality has become a very important factor in determining customer perception of vehicle quality and value. In this paper, a method for evaluating sound quality is presented and used in an engine design application. As part of the design of a future midsize vehicle, 14 engine component modifications were being considered as ways to improve sound quality. A subjective evaluation was carried out to determine if these modifications had any effect on perceived sound quality and, if so, which modifications provided the greatest sound quality benefit. A paired comparison method was used in which subjects judged, first, similarity and, then, preference. The similarity results showed that the vehicle sounds were indeed perceived quite differently. Additional analysis, using multidimensional scaling, revealed that most of these differences could be attribut...
Applied Acoustics, 2018
The sound quality of automotive components is becoming more and more important in the customer perception of the vehicle quality. In the present study, the sound quality of power windows was investigated through subjective and objective analyses of experimentally recorded sounds. In particular, a jury test based on Verbal Attribute Magnitude Estimation and Paired Comparison techniques was developed and presented. The combination of the two methods is a novel aspect with respect to the literature and resulted in a useful and simpler mean to obtain coherent subjective judgments. In order to quantify the power window sound quality, objective parameters were obtained applying acoustic and psychoacoustic metrics, resulting well correlated with the correspondent subjective evaluations. Additionally, correlation analyses between subjective overall (i.e. independent) judgements on sound quality and subjective dependent or objective parameters were performed. Regression analyses were applied to develop models of perceived component quality, powerfulness and annoyance. The subjective and objective quantities related to the features of loudness, sharpness and steadiness of the electric motor were found to be prominent in sound quality evaluation.
Effects of Spectral Balance on Annoyance and Perceived Quality from Interior Heavy Truck Sounds
ICA2004
Drivers of heavy trucks are exposed to relatively high level of low frequency noise, causing negative responses such as significantly decreased wakefulness and general annoyance but also positive responses like the impression of powerfulness. Previous research indicates that one important property of the interior sound influencing these responses is the spectral balance. As an initial study a number of test participants were presented four different sounds either through a headphones-subwoofer combination, or ...
Components in evaluation of complex interior truck sounds
Low Frequency Noise, Vibration and Active Control, 2006
In order to investigate influences on assessment of interior truck sounds two experiments have been carried out with emphasis on the low frequency content. In the first experiment the participants were presented with recorded sound from the interior of a truck cabin, with different alterations of the low frequency content. In the second experiment the balance between low and high frequency content was altered for the recorded sounds. Three main dimensions important for the assessment of truck sounds were found: an Annoyance ...