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The Threshold and Loudness of Repeated Bursts of Noise

1950; Acoustical Society of America; Volume: 22; Issue: 5_Supplement Linguagem: Inglês

10.1121/1.1917168

1520-9024

Irwin Pollack,

Hearing Loss and Rehabilitation

The loudness and threshold of an interrupted white noise (of constant sound-time fraction) was studied over a wide range of interruption frequencies. White noise—alone among auditory signals—has the special property that, when interrupted, no additional audible complicating spectral products are introduced. Both at absolute threshold and at equal-loudness above threshold, less energy is required for an interrupted white noise than for a non-interrupted continuous white noise. In many cases, an interrupted noise (sound-time fraction constant at 0.45) sounds louder than a continuous noise of the same amplitude (but of greater energy). The intensity required at threshold and at equal loudness is minimum for interruption rates in the region of 4–10 per second. The extent of this minimum region increases systematically as the reference loudness level is increased. A conceptual formulation which attempts to account for the results will be presented.