Contribution
Understanding the Perception of Sharpness by Increasing the Loudness of a Sound
* Presenting author
Abstract:
Loudness of a sound emphasizes the overall perception of sound energy by a human. Sharpness of a sound emphasizes this perception particularly in higher frequencies. Loudness and Sharpness of a sound in most cases are independent of each other. A Sound which has most of the energy in low frequencies may sound loud depending on the intensity but will not be perceived as being sharp. Likewise, a narrow-band noise which can be perceived as sharp depending on the human ears sensitivity in that frequency region, will not necessarily be perceived as being loud. However, there is a situation where Sharpness can be related to Loudness of a sound. As nonlinearities exist in every sound radiator, it cannot reproduce the sound perfectly, especially when the sound intensity is large. These nonlinearities result in distortion thereby altering the frequency spectrum. In addition, a linear increase in loudness across all critical bands will still not be perceived linearly by humans due to higher sensitivity in mid frequency regions. This paper aims to understand the perception of Sharpness for sounds with low and high loudness.