Loudness response variability is informative signal, not noise to discard

Evidence

This standard approach treats the variability in the response data as something to be removed. We propose to instead model the probabilistic nature of listener responses; these probabilistic representations can be used to improve loudness measurements and further our understanding of the mechanisms underlying this perception. At each stimulus level, there is a probability distribution across categorical loudness responses; when plotted as a function of stimulus level, these distributions form a multi-category psychometric function (MCPF), modeling the statistics of the listeners’ categorical perception. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 2513

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the multi-category psychometric function (MCPF) representation that treats response variability as structured data.
• XREF: connects to: Noise-sensitive people differ physiologically and psychologically from non-sensitive ones — Almo Farina, Soundscape Ecology: Principles,…, 925