Listeners cannot report auditory attributes on an absolute scale

Evidence

The task is, naturally, very complicated, as the subjects cannot access the absolute measure of the auditory attribute. For example, the subject’s ability to report, say, the loudness of a sound on an absolute scale or in relation to a sound heard more than a few seconds earlier is limited. As will be shown later, some clever systems have been found to define complex psychophysical functions, such as the relation of the SPL and loudness, or the sound spectrum and the loudness spectral density. — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 896

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• XREF: Limitation that motivates clever scaling methods connects to Stevens’ power law and magnitude estimation literature.

Related

• Humans cannot reliably report auditory attributes on absolute internal scales. (similarity 0.92)
• A human listener is needed to connect objective sound pressure with perceived loudness (similarity 0.83)
• Trained listeners can draw accurate spectral-balance curves of what they hear (similarity 0.82)
• Magnitude estimation of loudness yields only relative, not absolute, values. (similarity 0.82)
• No single frequency-weighting can accurately meter loudness at all levels (similarity 0.81)
• Human hearing excels at comparative judgments but fails at absolute ones. (similarity 0.81)
• Psychophysical scales are built from repeated ratio-adjustment judgments plus an anchor point (similarity 0.81)
• Pitch lacks a magnitude dimension, complicating its subjective measurement (similarity 0.81)
• Psychophysical scales are built by adjusting sounds to match reference ratios (similarity 0.81)
• Loudness is not reducible to sound pressure level or signal power (similarity 0.81)
• Stevens had to invent both the tools and the unit for measuring loudness (similarity 0.81)
• Magnitude estimation lets listeners assign numbers proportional to perceived loudness. (similarity 0.81)
• Pitch cannot be measured absolutely, only relative to another tone (similarity 0.80)
• The ‘we can’t measure what we hear’ myth stems from inadequate measurements (similarity 0.80)
• Sound power alone cannot predict listener preference for loudspeakers (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Pitch lacks magnitude, so rating scales fail where loudness scales succeed #corroborates (0.85) — Jennifer Lentz, Psychoacoustics- Perception of Normal…, 1172