Loudness of traffic noises using the method of continuous judgment by line length

The present study was conducted in order to examine the loudness of aircraft noise, road traffic noise and train noise in the same context. Using these traffic noises, the relation between instantaneous judgment based on perception and overall judgment based on memory were also examined. Four kinds of sound level were selected for each sound source. The stimulus used for the continuous judgment consisted of the 12 sounds. The participants judged the loudness at each moment using the method of continuous judgment by line length. After three trials they judged the overall loudness of each sound. Following results were found. (1) There was a high correlation between L_Aeq,100ms and instantaneous judgment. (2) Also a high correlation was found between L_Aeq and the average of instantaneous judgment of each sound and between L_Aeq and the overall judgment. (3) The overall loudness was judged louder than the average of instantaneous judgments. (4) There was no systematic difference among the three traffic noises.