Sound Quality of Turn Indicator Sounds—Use of a Multidimensional Approach in the Automotive Product Development (original) (raw)
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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...
2C2-2 Modelling of the Auditory Satisfaction Function for the Automobile Door Opening Quality
The Japanese journal of ergonomics, 2015
This study aims to determine the affective response that occurs when the driver listens to door opening sound of vehicles by analyzing the relationship of sound parameters and the affective satisfaction. For the purpose of this study, we conducted an experiment with 26 vehicles and 30 subjects. The subjects evaluated the door opening sounds of the vehicles on affective satisfaction by answering a standard affective evaluation. Through multiple regression analysis, the result of evaluation was utilized to create a model that can presume the satisfaction of door opening sound. As the result of the regression analysis, 'SharpnessZ', 'Short-term loudness', and 'Roughness' turned out to be the sound parameters that have significant impact on improving the satisfaction of vehicle door opening sound. Moreover, the affective adjectives 'Unstable', 'Quiet', and 'Clear' were confirmed to be the affective variables that influence the auditory satisfaction in the door opening quality. Through statistical analysis on the satisfaction of the opening sounds, we expect that a satisfaction model of vehicle door opening sounds can be developed based on the auditory parameters and the affective adjectives of vehicle door opening quality-to further aid designing procedure of vehicle door opening quality for improving affective satisfaction.
A New Approach for Developing Vehicle Target Sounds
Today, vehicle interior noise is an important customer satisfaction criterion. Acoustical engineers need to identify and eliminate disturbing noise components to maintain a competitive advantage. In fact, vehicle sound must be deliberately designed. This means that, to create driving satisfaction, certain noise aspects have to be emphasized and others reduced. Vehicle engineering needs to be extended to design-engineering and the exploration of preferred sounds. Furthermore, simulation of new engine sounds or even the sound of the entire vehicle at early stages in the development phase has become increasingly important. For example, different engine mounts can be virtually built in and their effects on interior sound can be examined without expensive iteration loops using physical prototypes. This article presents new tools for sound design and target sound development. In particluar, we introduce a new subject-centered method -Explorative Vehicle Evaluation (EVE), for determining target sounds.
FROM SOUND QUALITY TO SOUND SYSTEMS: RETROSPECTIVE OF SOUND STUDIES APPLICABLE TO PRODUCT DESIGN
DYNA MANAGEMENT, 2020
The current socio-technological context encourages the increase of products with increasingly complex and advanced interfaces. Sound is a valuable resource capable of facilitating interaction between product and user, and conveying information about events of different nature and criticality.However, design engineering lacks unified knowledge and a consensus methodology that facilitates the characterization of sound during product development processes. This article presents a retrospective, critical and systematic review of the most relevant theoretical and practical contributions applied in design engineering, from different scientific perspectives. The result is a map of publications classified in 6 large blocks, ranging from initial psychoacoustic studies, through observations on sound semantics, to the most up-to-date approaches supported by communication theories. In this way, researchers and developers in design engineering are provided with a guide and introduction to the main key aspects of sound study and in its application to product design domain. The article collects the main bibliographical references indicating whether they are theoretical or experimental studies, the scientific field with which they relate, their chronological location, and highlighting their main contributions.
Experience and information content affect interior vehicle sound quality assessments
International Journal of Vehicle Noise and Vibration, 2013
Recent research has found it useful to distinguish between the form and meaning of sounds. To investigate the relevance of meaning, naïve students and professional drivers listened to four levels of meaning neutralisation and four levels of spectral slope of recorded truck sound. Self-assessment of emotional reactions showed that professional drivers did not vary much in activation and rated over all lower activation than naïve participants whose affect ratings moved more or less along the annoyance correlation line in the upper left quadrant of the affect map. This gives some information about the importance of the source being recognisable and of previous user experience for product sound quality. It is further supported by that the overall difference between naïve participants' and professional drivers' ratings decreased with increasing meaning neutralisation. The methodology applied in the current study may be adopted to form homogenous panels of experts for sound evaluation.
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.
IPA - A Subjective Assessment Method of Sound Quality of Car Sound Systems
The paper describes a new subjective evaluation method of the acoustical quality produced by a sound system inside a car compartment. The method produces a single rating number, called IPA (Index of Performance Acoustic), defined as a weighted average of the subjective responses to a questionnaire, being compiled during listening tests conducted with the subject seating inside different cars. The paper describes the details of the subjective test, and focuses on the choice of questions in the questionnaire and of the weight to be employed. The principal innovation of the new method is the fact that the weights are changed according to the reliability of the subject (which is also inferred from the questionnaires), and thus the evaluation is very robust and almost immune from the inclusion in the panel of completely unreliable evaluators.
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.
Psychoacoustics of in-car switch buttons: From feelings to engineering parameters
Applied Acoustics, 2016
The car interior is becoming quieter and other sounds are now exposed to user perception, such as the sound produced by interface buttons when actuated. So, the functional role of the button sound on interface operation and its aesthetic and emotional role on the user experience are now more important than before. However, little research and design effort has been paid to understand how to design buttons that produce a pleasant sound. Moreover, the button's sound requirements received by interface manufacturers are ill-defined, insufficient or even inexistent, and consequently their conversion into specifications for manufacturing is problematic and leads to long and costly development processes. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to identify relevant acoustic parameters that explain the users sound preferences. Data on preference subjective judgments were collected and buttons acoustic signals were measured allowing the development of preference models based on partial least squares regression and neural networks methods. The former was successful in selecting the relevant parameters to describe the preference ratings of the buttons sound. The later, dealing with the non-linear nature of acoustic perception, was able to predict preferences based on the relevant parameters.
Desirable Sound for Products as a Product of Design
Auditory perception is a seemingly neglected aspect of design with respect to non audio specific products. The complex subjectivity with which we perceive sounds and subsequently attribute meanings to them is extensive, as described by . If one considers that a moving image need only be rendered at twenty four frames per second to provide an effective deception of being constant, yet sound requires a much higher resolution such as the standard forty four thousand one hundred samples per second at CD quality to achieve a satisfactory auditory equivalent, this can be drawn as an indicator to the relative complexity between our auditory and visual sensory systems. This Paper will discuss the quantification and application of our sonic perception in modern design, as well as discussing the rationales for doing so.