Doubling sound level from 30 to 90 dB only doubles perceived sharpness

Evidence

The unit of sharpness, the acum, is defined such that narrowband noise of width 1 Bark and centre frequency 1 kHz at an SPL of 60 dB produces a sharpness value of 1 acum. Psychoacoustic testing reveals that the level of sound also affects the perceived sharpness, but not very prominently. Increasing the level from 30 dB to 90 dB only doubles the sharpness value (Fastl and Zwicker, 2007, Chapter 9). — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 1210

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• XREF: Relates to Bregman-style auditory stream analysis and how spectral cues separate from loudness in hearing.

Related

• Sound level has only a weak effect on perceived sharpness (similarity 0.94)
• Sharpness changes little with level and bandwidth below one critical band. (similarity 0.88)
• Sharp caustic edges demand frequencies far above human hearing range (similarity 0.87)
• Loudness is not reducible to sound pressure level or signal power (similarity 0.84)
• Noise bandwidth changes sharpness dramatically across a wide range (similarity 0.84)
• Doubling perceived loudness requires a 10 dB increase. (similarity 0.84)
• Roughness grows by a factor of three per 40 dB of level increase (similarity 0.83)
• Loudness perception requires a tenfold intensity increase to double (similarity 0.83)
• A 10 dB change roughly doubles or halves perceived loudness for complex sounds (similarity 0.83)
• Auditory pathway neural activity linearly encodes perceived loudness, not sound level (similarity 0.83)
• Sharpness depends primarily on spectral content, not on level or bandwidth. (similarity 0.83)
• Perceived sharpness is stable across subjects and rises with spectral centre of gravity (similarity 0.83)
• Adding lower-frequency sound can decrease perceived sharpness (similarity 0.83)
• Hearing becomes less sensitive to frequency variations as level increases (similarity 0.83)
• Bass frequencies need far smaller level changes to halve perceived loudness (similarity 0.83)