Psychoacoustics

Analyses

In addition to the usual analytical methods with evaluated level parameters, psychoacoustics offers analyses based on the so-called basic “sensation parameters”: “Loudness”, for example, provides information about how loud a sound is actually perceived; “sharpness” represents the perception of high frequencies in a sound, and the “fluctuation intensity” and “roughness” parameters provide information about the temporal structures of a sound. Based on these and other sensory variables, both background noise and target sounds can be optimally described and analyzed for humans.

Listening Tests

Often analyses with the standard parameters of psychoacoustics are not sufficient to obtain a comprehensive statement about a noise problem. Thus, listening tests and subjective assessments can be performed to ask people directly about their perceptions and thus to quantify the properties of the noise. Under defined laboratory conditions, test persons are presented with sounds via headphones and questioned about the decisive criteria. The selection of the test method and the test persons is carried out individually depending on the task at hand.

Product Design

For a large number of products, their acoustic properties are a decisive sales criterion. For example, for vehicles, household appliances or food intake, noise has a significant influence on the customer’s opinion of the quality of the entire product.

With the help of psychoacoustics, Möhler + Partner engineers are happy to support you with part of or the entire process of your acoustic product design: the first step is to define a target sound. With the help of listening tests, target-oriented acoustic modifications can then be worked out in order to create the optimum sound for your product.