Sound quality evaluation for vehicle door opening sound using psychoacoustic parameters

The sound of a door opening on a vehicle has a main influence on psychological comfort and affective satisfaction for the vehicle. This study aims to evaluate the auditory pleasantness of the door opening sound and to derive the sound parameters, which can optimize that pleasantness. Fourteen different door opening sounds were selected and recorded. Participants evaluated each recorded door opening sound with the designed questionnaire. Three main results were obtained. First, the questionnaire was developed to evaluate the auditory pleasantness of door opening sound based on five affective attributes: ‘loud’, ‘sharp’, ‘rough’, ‘clear’, and ‘satisfy’. These were selected through previous literature review and expert interviews. Second, ‘Loudness’, ‘sharpness’, ‘roughness’, ‘fluctuation strength’, and ‘tonality’ were selected as the psychoacoustic parameters. These parameters were found to be the important dimensions for the perception of door opening sound. Each affective attribute was related to psychoacoustic parameters by correlation analysis. Finally, the authors developed a model to predict subjective response to the door opening sound through regression analysis. In the incidence of ‘loud’, ‘sharp’, and ‘rough’, high R2 values were shown. Multiple regression was used to create a model to predict auditory pleasantness. The psychoacoustic parameter ‘loudness’ was shown to have a major effect on auditory pleasantness. The parameters ‘loudness’, ‘sharpness’, and ‘roughness’ were shown to affect the attributes of the door opening sound. The result of this study was an optimal model, created through psychoacoustic parameters, to predict the auditory pleasantness of door opening sounds.