A model for noise annoyance based on notice-events (invited paper)
Tom De Muer, Dick B. Botteldooren, Bert De Coensel, Birgitta Berglund, Mats E. Nilsson, Peter Lercher · Ghent University Academic Bibliography (Ghent University) · 2005
Exposure effect relationships for environmental noise annoyance have been based on L dn or L den , two measures based on energy averaging L Aeq .For event based sources, typically, event sound level is traded for number of events in modeling the impact of noise on annoyance.Clearly, a more unified theory for noise annoyance is needed to account fully for the effect of such trade-offs.The model presented in this paper is grounded in the hypothesis that noise annoyance is primarily determined by noticed intruding sounds.The model starts by careful prediction of the occurrence of 'notice-events'.It takes into account signal to noise ratio of the target sound with respect to the ambient (natural) background level, the indoor background level, the activity the listener is engaged in, etc. Noticed events are appraised via an emotional and a cognitive path.As a test case, our model is applied to annoyance and acoustic data from a field experiment in a natural setting in which participants were engaged in other activities than focused listening to sounds.Target sounds were train noise with varying event intensity and number of events, and free flow road traffic noise from highways and roads.The outdoor background levels were 39-49 dBA.