Over the last few years, it has become apparent that annoyance due to low frequency noise is more wide spread than initially believed. As part of an investigation into this type of annoyance, 20 subjects (10 males and 10 females) carried out a psychophysical magnitude estimation task and rated the annoyance and loudness of higher-level low frequency noise stimuli. Overall, no significant difference between the annoyance and loudness attributes was found, but some sex differences did occur. Males had a significantly different rate of annoyance growth when compared to females and the loudness response by males was significantly higher than for females. Unacceptability was also rated, and as expected, magnitude of annoyance, ψ, was related to the B-weighted sound pressure, Pb, by the simple power law ψ = Kpb0.616 (90 < OASPL (dB) < 105, 20 < FREQUENCY (Hz) < 90) where K is a constant.
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