Sharpness depends primarily on spectral content, not on level or bandwidth.

Evidence

Sharpness is a sensation which we can consider separately, and it is possible, for example, to compare the sharpness of one sound with the sharpness of another. Sharpness can also be doubled or halved if variables are available that really change sharpness. The variability of sharpness judgements is comparable to that of loudness judgements. One of the important variables influencing the sensation of sharpness is the spectral envelope of the sound. Many comparisons have indicated that the spectral fine structure is relatively unimportant in sharpness. A noise producing a continuous spectrum, for example, has the same sharpness as a sound composed of many lines if the spectral envelopes measured in critical-band levels are the same. — Professor Dr.-Ing. Hugo Fastl, Professor Dr.-Ing. Eberhard, Psychoacoustics- Facts and Models, 1340 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Taking into account the factor, g, which increases above 16 Bark to values larger than unity, using the specific loudness versus critical-band rate pattern as the distribution in question, and using the boundary condition that a narrow-band noise centred at 1 kHz has to produce a sharpness of 1 acum, an equation of the following form can be given: … In this equation, S is the sharpness to be calculated and the denominator gives the total loudness N, which has already been discussed in Chap. 8. The upper integral is like the first moment of specific loudness over critical-band rate, but uses an additional factor, g(z), that is critical-band-rate dependent. This factor is shown in Fig. 9.2 as a function of critical-band rate. Only for critical-band rates larger than 16 Bark does the factor increase from unity to a value of four at the end of the critical-band rate near 24 Bark. This takes into account that sharpness of narrow-band noises increases unexpectedly strongly at high centre frequencies. Equation (9.1) is only a weighted first moment of the critical-band rate distribution of specific loudness. — Professor Dr.-Ing. Hugo Fastl, Professor Dr.-Ing. Eberhard, Psychoacoustics- Facts and Models, 1355 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Sharpness depends on the spectral envelope, not fine structure; Spectral envelope, not fine structure, determines perceived sharpness — Professor Dr.-Ing. Hugo Fastl, Professor Dr.-Ing. Eberhard, Psychoacoustics- Facts and Models, 1340; Sound level has only a weak effect on perceived sharpness — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 1210 (+2 more)

Related

• Sharpness depends on the spectral envelope, not fine structure (similarity 0.97)
• Spectral envelope, not fine structure, determines perceived sharpness (similarity 0.94)
• Sharpness is modeled as a weighted first moment of specific loudness (similarity 0.92)
• Sound level has only a weak effect on perceived sharpness (similarity 0.90)
• Sharpness changes little with level and bandwidth below one critical band. (similarity 0.89)
• Sharp spectral peaks, not narrow gaps, drive strong pitch perception (similarity 0.86)
• Sharp caustic edges demand frequencies far above human hearing range (similarity 0.85)
• Perceived sharpness is stable across subjects and rises with spectral centre of gravity (similarity 0.85)
• Loudness depends on more than physical sound intensity alone (similarity 0.85)
• Narrow-band noise sharpness grows proportionally with critical-band rate up to about 3 kHz (similarity 0.84)
• Loudness rises with bandwidth beyond the critical band despite falling pattern height (similarity 0.84)
• Wider bandwidth increases perceived loudness at equal sound pressure (similarity 0.84)
• Doubling sound level from 30 to 90 dB only doubles perceived sharpness (similarity 0.84)
• Loudness is the summed specific loudness across critical-band rates, not the raw spectral level (similarity 0.84)
• Adding lower-frequency sound can decrease perceived sharpness (similarity 0.83)

Broader Connections

• Sharpness depends on the spectral envelope, not fine structure #expands (0.90)
• Spectral envelope, not fine structure, determines perceived sharpness #corroborates (0.88) — Professor Dr.-Ing. Hugo Fastl, Professor Dr.-Ing. Eberhard, Psychoacoustics- Facts and Models, 1340
• Sharpness is modeled as a weighted first moment of specific loudness #expands (0.85) — Professor Dr.-Ing. Hugo Fastl, Professor Dr.-Ing. Eberhard, Psychoacoustics- Facts and Models, 1355
• Sound level has only a weak effect on perceived sharpness #corroborates (0.82) — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 1210
• Humans hear spectral content, not waveform shape or phase shifts #expands (0.75) — , Toole, Floyd E - Sound reproduction-…, 504