Sound Quality Characteristics of Refrigerator Noise in relation to Autocorrelation Function and Psychoacoustical Parameters

ACF 및 심리음향 파라미터에 의한 냉장고 소음의 Sound qualify 평가

This study investigates objective and subjective evaluations of refrigerator noise. To describe the fluctuations like a click, a rapid increase of sound level, a change of pitch, a transition into the stationary and ending phase, the psychoacoustical and autocorrelation function(ACF) parameters have been employed. First, subjective evaluation of the noisiness of 24 kinds of refrigerators was conducted. Then, the relationship between objective measures of the refrigerator noise on perceived noisiness was examined with multiple regression analyses. Sound Quality Indices using the psychoacoustical and ACF parameters were also developed. The important psychoacoustical parameters for evaluating noisiness are loudness and roughness of stationary phase. The relationship between the noisiness and the ACF parameters shows that sound energy ${\Phi}(0)$ and its fluctuations are important. Also, refrigerator sounds that had a fluctuation of pitch were rated as more annoying. The fluctuation of pitch is expressed by ${\tau}_1\;and\;{\Phi}_1$ defined by the delay time and the amplitude of the first peak of the ACF.