Could you please help me out with my university project. I need you to do this sound test online. It will only take about 7-8 mins. You will need headphones (preferably). Main purpose of this research is to find out which environmental sounds are more pleasant and why. So if you enjoy different ambient recordings then go ahead and have some fun.
Pleasantness of a sound depend also on how much time you are exposed to it.
60 seconds ? I like it very much. One day ? I hate it.
For the same reason I could choose a sound over another if I have to hear it all my life. but change the time frame to a day and I could choose differently.
Another important criteria is volume, or sound pressure. I can like a sound whisper quiet, and hate it louder.
I can hate another sound but reduce its volume and I could like it as background noise.
So time and volume at least should be included in the survey, as it is it's just wrong to extrapolate some results from it in my opinion because I could have answered to all your questions differently by just changing some variables while listening to the exact same sounds.
luis wrote:I've taken your survey, I have some remarks.
Pleasantness of a sound depend also on how much time you are exposed to it.
60 seconds ? I like it very much. One day ? I hate it.
For the same reason I could choose a sound over another if I have to hear it all my life. but change the time frame to a day and I could choose differently.
Another important criteria is volume, or sound pressure. I can like a sound whisper quiet, and hate it louder.
I can hate another sound but reduce its volume and I could like it as background noise.
So time and volume at least should be included in the survey, as it is it's just wrong to extrapolate some results from it in my opinion because I could have answered to all your questions differently by just changing some variables while listening to the exact same sounds.
Thanks. I understand your point and completely agree. As much as I would like to do it properly we are not asked to strictly adhere to a particular subjective listening test standard (like the ITU-R BS1116 or others) nor we have time to do so. The emphasis here is on the KNN statistical model and subjective sound analysis (in MATLAB). The system we build needs to accept a new set of sounds and tell whether listeners might enjoy the environment/sound or not. Subjective listening test's purpose is to train the KNN system and so far the answers I have received are more or less consistent. Also the length has been set in the project requirements and therefore we cant go above 10 seconds. But like I said the points you raised are all valid. Pleasantness of sounds is a very intricate topic- it depends on the listeners mood, surroundings, physical condition, past experiences and more. The test we setup has been aimed at detecting your first impressions of the sound environment at volumes you're comfortable with. It is important to understand that all clips have been automatically matched in loudness (IBU) against each other and the interaction between each clip is important. Say if you listen to a forest ambience and the next clip is a harsh factory environment we expect the factory to be less pleasant (obviously as humans instinctively prefer natural over mechanical sounds). Hopefully I explained the purpose of this.
