Effect of the room acoustical characteristics on the annoyance of floor impact sounds

Abstract

This study investigates the effect of reverberation time (RT) on the perception of heavy-weight floor-impact sounds through auditory experiments. Heavy-weight impact sounds of a rubber ball were recorded in apartment buildings with box-frame type reinforced-concrete structures. The distribution of RT for heavy-weight impact sounds was calculated. An auditory experiment was conducted in order to examine the just-noticeable difference (JND) of RT, which was determined by the criteria of 75% correct answers by the subjects. It was found that the JND of RT is approximately 0.13 s. Based on the distribution and JND of RT, another experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of RT on the annoyance perception of heavy-weight floor impact sounds in relation to the level differences. The results indicate that the sound pressure level (SPL) and RT significantly influence annoyance perception; the scale value of annoyance increases with increasing RT and increasing SPL. This indicates that the effects of RT should be considered for the evaluation of annoyance, and the subjective response to impact sounds can be improved by controlling for RT as well as impact SPL.