A Sound Quality Study of Household Electrical Appliances by Jury Test in Indoor Space

ABSTRACT

This paper establishes a procedure for the evaluation of human hearing perception in indoor spaces by jury testing. An artificial head system was used to record indoor noise and to determine physical acoustic and psychoacoustic parameters within living and working environments. This test involved a jury consisting of 102 people of different ages, genders and occupations. The subjects participated in the sound quality evaluation and from this; indicators of human perception to sound were obtained.

Three types of residential spaces in which to carry out the jury test were selected, including a high-rise apartment, a general residential apartment and a small apartment suite. A workspace in the form of a medium-sized meeting room was also tested. The paired comparison method and the category judgment method were both utilized in the jury test questionnaire. The paired comparison method was used to evaluate the psychoacoustic perception of loudness and sharpness, while the category judgment method applied a seven-point scale. Psychoacoustic parameters were used to analyze human hearing responses; from these, perceived sound quality was established for each subject. Through this testing procedure, a reasonable sound quality evaluation method was established.

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