Citation

Schomer P, Mestre V, Fidell S, Berry B, Gjestland T, Vallet M, Reid T. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 2012; 131(4): 2772-2786.

Affiliation

Schomer and Associates, Inc., 2117 Robert Drive, Champaign, Illinois 61821.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2012, American Institute of Physics)

DOI

10.1121/1.3688762

PMID

22501056

Abstract

Fidell et al. [(2011), J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 130(2), 791-806] have shown (1) that the rate of growth of annoyance with noise exposure reported in attitudinal surveys of the annoyance of aircraft noise closely resembles the exponential rate of change of loudness with sound level, and (2) that the proportion of a community highly annoyed and the variability in annoyance prevalence rates in communities are well accounted for by a simple model with a single free parameter: a community tolerance level (abbreviated CTL, and represented symbolically in mathematical expressions as L(ct)), expressed in units of DNL. The current study applies the same modeling approach to predicting the prevalence of annoyance of road traffic and rail noise. The prevalence of noise-induced annoyance of all forms of transportation noise is well accounted for by a simple, loudness-like exponential function with community-specific offsets. The model fits all of the road traffic findings well, but the prevalence of annoyance due to rail noise is more accurately predicted separately for interviewing sites with and without high levels of vibration and/or rattle.

Language: en