Scaling Human Reactions to the Sound from Aircraft

Abstract

People were asked to judge the "annoyance" or potential bothersomeness of the sounds made by reciprocating-engine aircraft and jet aircraft. The over-all sound pressure level (SPL) and the speech interference level of the sounds from the aircraft as measured on the ground, either outdoors or indoors, bear little relation to the judgments. The loudness level in phons, the values obtained with the aid of an "equal listener response curve" and over-all sound pressure level correlate better with the findings. However, the results of the judgment tests are predicted best when the SPL''s of the various octave bands are weighted in a newly prescribed manner based on previously published equal annoyance contours.