Abstract
Emotional expression of four levels of six kinds of sound (aircraft noise, train noise, road traffic noise, speech, music and construction noise) was examined using the method of selected description in five countries-Japan, Sweden, West Germany, China and the U. S. Subject were asked to select the adjectives which they thought appropriate for expressing the impression of each sound. Using the method of selected description, the differences and similarities between sound sources and use of adjectives were expressed more clearly than when conventional semantic differential was used. On the basis of the adjectives selected and cluster analysis, it was found for sounds used in this experi mentthat “loud” in Japan, Sweden and China has neutral connotations while “loud” in Germany and the U. S. has negative connotations. It was also suggested that “noisy” and “annoying” are not differentiated in Japan, while in the other four countries these two adjectives are differentially used.
