Role of the Duration of Sharpness in the Perceived Quality of Impulsive Vehicle Sounds

This study investigates the role of the parameter "duration of sharpness" TS in the prediction of the perceived quality of impulsive vehicle sounds, as evaluated by normal hearing listeners. Three experiments are presented in the paper. In the first experiment the impulsive sounds of the door locking and closing are assessed. It is found that the parameter TS has a strong (negative) correlation with the perceived quality of the sounds. This correlation is comparable with the traditional measures of the percentile loudness and the maximum loudness of the door locking noise. However, the parameter TS correlates even stronger than the loudness measurements of the door closing sounds. In the second experiment, the quality of the door closing sounds was improved by means of structural component alterations. The increase in sound quality has led to a TS reduction, confirming the hypothesis that the sound quality of this type of stimulus is largely determined by TS. In a third experiment, the duration of sharpness has been modified by high-pass filtering portions of the stimulus. The filtered signals resulted in a higher sound quality than the original signals, as expected on the basis of TS. Thus, the duration of sharpness has a high predictive accuracy for the quality of impulsive sounds, at least when vehicle sounds are considered.