Knowing a sound’s source barely affects how loud we rate it

Evidence

The results displayed in Fig. 16.19 can be interpreted in such a way that the information about the sound source has little influence on the loudness rating. Considering the medians, in four out of 19 cases the processed sounds produce a larger loudness than the original sounds. In the remaining 15 cases, the original sounds produce a larger loudness than the processed sounds or both sounds produce the same loudness. However, as already indicated, because of the overlap of the inter-quartile ranges, these differences should not be overestimated. — Professor Dr.-Ing. Hugo Fastl, Professor Dr.-Ing. Eberhard, Psychoacoustics- Facts and Models, 1864

Categorization

• QUESTION: This contradicts intuition that source knowledge biases perception — worth chasing the underlying model of how top-down information is gated out of loudness processing.