Quality of door sounds of passenger cars

The relation between the subjective impression of the door sounds and the mental image of the passenger car examined in an experiment using German and Japanese participants was investigated. High coefficients of correlation between the results of the German and Japanese groups. The formation of the mental image has no effect on the sounds and that the evaluation of the participants is reliable. Three factors extracted from participants of both the groups included pleasant factor, metallic factor, and powerful or hard factor. The experiment conducted in the well-controlled sound proof room and in a lecture hall suggested that the pleasant impression of the sound of a car closing is stable. The results showed that the quality of sound of a car door closing was perceived differently in different cases. It was suggested that the image of a car is related to the sound produced by the door of the car.