Gender differences in judgment criteria using verbal expression might be a principal factor causing gender differences in perceived loudness

Abstract

Previous studies have reported gender differences in perceived loudness. For instance, women tend to assign higher loudness scores to sounds with the same sound pressure level than men when verbal expressions such as "soft" and "loud" are used to evaluate perceived loudness. However, when a ratio scale was used, gender differences were observed under limited conditions in Chinese participants but not Japanese participants. In this study, to clarify the factors affecting gender differences in loudness perception, we conducted four experiments involving magnitude estimation and magnitude production methods in Japanese participants. We examined gender difference in perceived loudness with respect to changes in sound pressure level. The power exponent α in Stevens' power law, estimated from the experimental results of the four experiments, did not show a clear gender-based difference. According to our results, gender differences in judgment criteria using verbal expression such as "soft" and "loud" might be a principal factor causing gender differences in the evaluation of perceived loudness, at least among Japanese participants.