A study on calibration methods of noise annoyance data from listening tests

In listening tests of noise annoyance, subjects act as "measuring instruments". Noise annoyance of different subjects induced by a same noise sample, or noise annoyance of a same subject induced by a same noise sample in different experimental groups, are different due to the varying psychological scale of subjects. To unify subjects' psychological scale and accurately determine perceived annoyance, it is necessary to investigate the optimal noise annoyance data calibration method. Based on the master scale transformation, three kinds of annoyance data calibration methods, i.e., individual annoyance data calibration, sound sample annoyance data calibration, and a combination of both methods, were explored. The effectiveness of three methods for unifying subjects' psychological scale was ascertained. Results showed that the individual annoyance data calibration was the most effective among the three calibration methods. After calibration, the difference between annoyance induced by a same sound sample in any two different experimental sound sample groups declined significantly. The determination coefficient of the fitting curve between psychoacoustic annoyance and perceived annoyance, R2, upgraded significantly. By comprehensively applying listening test methods and annoyance data calibration methods suggested in this study, the psychological scale of the subjects can be as unified as possible.