The Approach and Methodology of Psychoacoustics

• Published in: Communication Acoustics pp. 133 - 151
• Main Authors: Karjalainen, Matti, Pulkki, Ville
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: United Kingdom John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated 2015; Wiley; John Wiley & Sons, Inc
• Subjects: auditory events; descriptive sensory analysis; ELECTRONICS & COMMUNICATIONS ENGINEERING; hearing mechanisms; PHYSICS; psychoacoustics; psychophysical function; sound events
• ISBN: 1118866541; 9781118866542
• DOI: 10.1002/9781119825449.ch8

This chapter discusses various methods used to study the functionality of hearing mechanisms by psychoacoustic means; that is, by presenting sound events to subjects and asking them to perform some tasks in a formal listening test method. Sound stimuli consist of sound events that enter the auditory system of the subject. A psychophysical function represents the relation between one or several properties of a sound events and one or several properties of an auditory event. The chapter also discusses the generation of sound events and auditory events, the scales to be researched with the tests, and also the tasks for the subjects. Descriptive sensory analysis aims to identify, describe, and quantify the sensory attributes of stimuli using naive or trained human subjects, and it is often described as the most sophisticated tool in sensory science. The chapter provides an overview of the techniques in the context of audio.