Aspects of startling noises

In a pilot study, aspects of startling noises were investigated. For a typical synthetic broadband sound, i.e. uniform exciting noise, the influence of the following stimulus parameters on startling reactions were studied: (1) Magnitude of a level increase (5⋯40 dB, 10ms rise time) above a pedestal of 45 dB (2) Level increase of 30 dB for pedestals between 40 and 55 dB as well as 20 dB for pedestals between 50 an 65 dB (10ms rise time). (3) Rise times between 1 and 300 ms for a level increase of 35 dB above a 50 dB pedestal. For the parameters considered in the pilot study, the magnitude of the level increase of a rising edge was found to be crucial for the startling reaction. Rise times between 1 and 10 ms lead to similar startling reactions, which were approximately halved for 200 ms rise time. In a first approach to modeling startling reactions to synthetic noises, the increase in percentile loudness N ₅ proves promising. Additionally, to predict startling of technical sounds, the onset rate of the loudness-time function seems to be of importance.