2012 Volume 58 Issue 2 Pages 69-73
Because heavy floor-impact sounds generated in wood buildings might cause noise problems, they should be evaluated by using an index expressing the auditory sense from a resident's perspective. To find such an index, conventional and psychoacoustical evaluations of loudness, and also subjective evaluation of loudness based on the Magnitude Estimation Method were conducted for several heavy floor impact sounds generated in a wooden model floor. The floor featured flooring, sound insulating materials and shock absorbing materials used on a wood frame structure. Consequently, it was clarified that nonstationary loudness, which was one of the psychoacoustical indices, showed a higher correlation with the subjective evaluation than the maximum A-weighted sound pressure level, which was one of the common indices of loudness.
