Title: Vibrations can have both negative and positive effects on the perception of sound

Authors: Anders Genell, Daniel Vastfjall

Addresses: Division of Applied Acoustics, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, S-41296 Gothenburg, Sweden. ' Division of Applied Acoustics, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, S-41296 Gothenburg, Sweden

Abstract: In a listening test participants were asked to rate their impression of product sound quality of truck sounds combined with steering wheel vibrations. The set-up also contained stimuli where one of two harmonics in the sound was suppressed, corresponding to the most salient peaks in the vibration spectrum. Sound and vibrations were rated as more annoying, tiring, rumbling and of lesser quality than the sound alone. Sound and vibrations were however also rated as more powerful, suggesting a positive contribution to the product sound quality. Only tendencies towards the expected mismatch effects for vibrations lacking their auditory counterpart were found.

Keywords: product sound quality; multimodal perception; sound and vibration perception; truck sounds; steering wheel vibrations; vehicle noise; vehicle vibration.

DOI: 10.1504/IJVNV.2007.014903

International Journal of Vehicle Noise and Vibration, 2007 Vol.3 No.2, pp.172 - 184

Published online: 16 Aug 2007 *

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