Psychoacoustic Parameters and Variations in Annoyance Perception: An
EEG-based Study
Abstract
Studies have indicated that prolonged exposure to unwanted acoustic
stimuli can trigger noise annoyance. Large engines are prevalent in
industrial and traffic settings, but their high performance often comes
with significant radiated noise emissions, leading to relevant staff
members’ annoyance. Traditional evaluations, for example psychoacoustic
parameters, of noise annoyance fail to adequately account for the
physiological processes involved in sound perception.
Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals can provide insights into the
physiological responses to external acoustic stimuli. Here, we design an
experimental paradigm to capture EEG signals and extract spectral and
brain’s functional connectivity features when the participants evaluate
the annoyance of diesel engine radiated noise samples. The correlation
between spectral features and subjective annoyance shows that the delta
and alpha bands’ relative power could reflect noise annoyance.
Delta-band brain network analysis inferred those differences in
exogenous temporal attention networks’ threshold, about 30%, result in
variations in noise annoyance perception.