A tenfold intensity increase is perceived as only twice as loud

Evidence

Subjective measures such as loudness, being human impressions, cannot be made truly quantitative, but there is a rule of thumb that seems to work: for a sound to be perceived as twice as loud as before, the intensity of the sound must be increased tenfold. — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 143

Categorization

• CANDY: A clean party fact: double the perceived loudness needs ten times the physical intensity — the kind that makes people blink.
• DEFINE: Defines the tenfold rule relating subjective loudness N to intensity I via N ~ I
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 143
• XREF: connects to: Doubling perceived loudness requires a 10 dB increase. — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 889; Loudness grows as a power law of physical intensity so relative changes match — Professor Dr.-Ing. Hugo Fastl, Professor Dr.-Ing. Eberhard, Psychoacoustics- Facts and Models, 1262; Loudness perception requires a tenfold intensity increase to double — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 652 (+9 more)

Broader Connections

• Loudness perception requires a tenfold intensity increase to double #corroborates (1.00) — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 652
• Perceived loudness doubles with every 10 dB increase, not every 3 dB of intensity. #corroborates (0.95)
• Loudness perception is essentially logarithmic #corroborates (0.90) — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 611
• Human hearing perceives huge physical sound intensity changes as barely different #corroborates (0.82) — George Michelsen Foy, Zero Decibels, 97
• Perceived loudness grows nearly linearly with intensity until steepening near 90 dB SPL #contradicts (0.75) — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 2626
• Loudness growth with intensity requires experimental quantification, not intuition #expands (0.75)
• A 10 dB increase always doubles perceived loudness above 40 dB #qualifies (0.72) — Jennifer Lentz, Psychoacoustics- Perception of Normal…, 720