Loudness Patterns—a New Approach

Abstract

In the past loudness patterns have been based on the masking effect of one sound on another. For sounds with single frequency components the" method is thought to be in error due to the formation of beats and modulation products between the primary tone for which a pattern is desired and the probe tone which is used to determine the pattern details. In the present tests, the probe tone was presented after the primary tone was turned off. The resulting residual masking patterns differ in a number of important respects from patterns based on the simultaneous masking procedure. A comparison between the loudness of a primary tone, as evidenced by the magnitude of its residual masking pattern, with the results of loudness judgment tests,was made by replacing physical scales of pressure and frequency by subjective scales of loudness and position. A reasonably good check of measured and computed loudness values was obtained. Patterns for a 1000-cycle tone were measured to determine how the loudness is distributed and how this distribution changes as the level of the tone changes.