The relationship between speech intelligibility and the assessment of noise annoyance

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1 The relationship between speech intelligibility and the assessment of noise annoyance Anna Preis a), Honorata Hafke-Dys b), Tomasz Kaczmarek c), Truls Gjestland d) and Paweł Kleka e) (Received: 26 May 2012; Revised: 10 April 2013; Accepted: 10 April 2013) When thinking about noise annoyance, the tendency is to imagine a person s rest being disturbed by noise. Although this idea is not formulated explicitly, the majority of traditional experiments implicitly assume that absence of activity during rest represents the typical situation in which noise annoyance should be studied. We propose that research should be extended to different kinds of activities. This study focuses on one kind of activity: verbal communication. Our hypothesis is that the assessment of difficulty with speech comprehension can be replaced by a speech intelligibility measure, which could assess annoyance experienced during communicative activities. Finally, we would like to find out how noise annoyance disturbs communicative activity, and to compare this with annoyance experienced during rest. To test our hypothesis, two psychoacoustic experiments were performed. In Experiment I, speech intelligibility was measured for eight environmental noises at seven signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs). For these SNR values, the participants assessed their difficulty with speech comprehension. This established the relationships between the intelligibility functions and the difficultly in speech comprehension for all the investigated noises. The results of Experiment I show that the potential noise annoyance rating could be predicted on the basis of the speech intelligibility scores, as they give much smaller inter-individual differences between participants than an annoyance assessment test. In Experiment II, the standard resting method of noise annoyance assessment was applied to the same eight noises. A comparison of the results indicated a correlation between the annoyance ratings obtained in both the experiments. Some limitations of this approach are also discussed in the paper Institute of Noise Control Engineering. Primary subject classification: 63.5; Secondary subject classification: INTRODUCTION Annoyance is an important parameter when community noise regulations are considered. Annoyance sums up various negative aspects of noise. In order to protect residents from too much negative impact, regulations a) Institute of Acoustics, Adam Mickiewicz University, Umultowska 85, Poznań POLAND; apraton@amu.edu.pl. b) Institute of Acoustics, Adam Mickiewicz University, Umultowska 85, Poznań POLAND; h.hafke@amu.edu.pl. c) Institute of Acoustics, Adam Mickiewicz University, Umultowska 85, Poznań POLAND; tomasz.k@amu.edu.pl. d) SINTEF ICT, Trondheim NORWAY. e) Institute of Psychology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań POLAND. specifying acceptable limits for noise exposure are often implemented. Exposure limits such as these require data on the relationship between annoyance and noise exposure for both long periods and short periods of noise annoyance. Typically the noise limits are specified so that about 10% of the exposed average population will regard themselves as highly annoyed. General dose response functions, which give the relationship between annoyance and noise exposure (usually considering human response over a long time period), have been constructed on the basis of numerous community surveys. These functions give the percentage of the exposed population that consider themselves highly annoyed as a function of the equivalent noise level, or a derivative, such as the day night equivalent level, DNL (L DN ) or the day evening night equivalent level, DENL (L den ). Several dose response curves have been standardized 1 4. Noise Control Engr. J. 61 (3), May-June

2 Even if there seems to be a general consensus regarding the validity of these functions, a number of studies have been conducted, and are being conducted, to get more detailed knowledge about the relationship between annoyance and the physical description of the noise situation. See Ref. 5 for recent review. Such studies require huge efforts and are expensive to carry out. Therefore many attempts have been made to simplify the procedures. The idea of substituting subjective annoyance assessment tests with intelligibility tests (usually considering human response over short time period) is an example of such an attempt. It seems that it is easier for participants to repeat the sentence heard with a background of noise than to decide, using the numbers on the scale, how much a given noise annoys them. There is probably also better agreement between subjects responses in the speech intelligibility data than in the annoyance data. The results of our study should confirm this better agreement, since we will have the participants responses from both tests: speech intelligibility and annoyance assessment. The results of intelligibility tests are traditionally expressed as a signal-to-noise ratio, SNR, that yields a certain amount of intelligibility for specific speech material. The intelligibility of speech depends on the signal-to-noise ratio, SNR, and is independent of absolute signal levels, provided that the speech is presented within the normal hearing range. Noise annoyance, however, is highly dependent on the level at which the noise is observed. Environmental noise can be observed over a large dynamic range. The annoyance can be scored on a linear scale from not annoying to extremely annoying. The difference in equivalent levels between a situation that is assessed as not annoying and one that is assessed as extremely annoying is typically about 60 db. An intelligibility test that could replace the ordinary annoyance assessment test should therefore be able to handle a similar dynamic range. There is a range of studies on speech intelligibility in noise, from the classic literature 6,7 to more recent literature. See Refs. 8, 9 and 10 among others. However, only in few papers was speech intelligibility studied together with speech annoyance 8,11. The relationship between speech intelligibility in noise and noise annoyance was only suggested in one paper 12. In the traditional studies of noise annoyance, the objective measure of noise, for example L AeqT, is related to the noise annoyance assessment caused by this noise. Different scales are used for noise annoyance assessment, including the numerical and semantic scale defined in the ISO/TS 15666:2003(E) standard 1. These scales are used in both field and laboratory conditions. When applied under standard laboratory conditions, special attention is paid to the instructions given to the participants. Usually the participant is questioned about how annoyed she/he would feel when exposed to the given noise 13. There is also a Polish version of the noise annoyance scale 14 which was originally recommended for noise surveys by ICBEN 15,16 but may also be applied in laboratory studies. See Ref. 17, among others. The idea of substituting subjective annoyance assessment tests with intelligibility tests was dealt with in our previous study 18, where we proposed relating obtained annoyance judgments to the well-defined activity in the context of which a given experiment was performed. In this study, as well as in our previous study, communicative activity was investigated. When environmental noise disturbs a communicative activity, it is possible to measure the speech intelligibility scores under different noise conditions. Instead of scaling the noise parameters, the difficulty subjects have in performing a given activity when disturbed by noise is scaled. The disturbance of this activity, caused by noise, can be used as a measure of the annoyance pertaining to this noise. One final aim of this study is to investigate whether the measure of subjects difficulty with speech comprehension during communicative activity could be a measure of the noise annoyance caused by environmental noises. If we could show a quantitative relationship between the difficulty with speech comprehension (the postulated measure of noise annoyance) and intelligibility scores, it would mean that noise annoyance experiments could be replaced by speech intelligibility tests. We could predict the noise annoyance value on the basis of speech intelligibility scores. So far, the difficulty with speech comprehension rated as 7 on the ICBEN scale of annoyance was obtained for 50% of speech intelligibility scores 18. The aim of this study is to extend the previous study in order to find the relationship between these two measures in order to predict potential noise annoyance rating based on speech intelligibility scores. An additional aim is to find out if and how noise annoyance judgments depend on the subject s activity. This can be achieved by comparing the measures of noise annoyance obtained in Experiment I (where difficulty in speech comprehension is a measure of noise annoyance), and the results of Experiment II (where the standard method of noise annoyance assessment was applied to the same noises as in Experiment I). It is assumed that noise annoyance judgments in traditional experiments are obtained while the participant is in a rest state, at least in laboratory conditions. Thus, the results of both experiments are noise annoyance assessments of the same environmental noises, 256 Noise Control Engr. J. 61 (3), May-June 2013

3 but judged through two different activities: communicating and resting. 2 EXPERIMENT I: PSYCHOMETRIC CURVE FOR SPEECH INTELLIGIBILITY SCORES AND DIFFICULTY IN SPEECH COMPREHENSION In our previous paper, the speech reception thresholds (SRTs) of nine environmental noises were obtained (eight of these noises are the stimuli used in the present paper 16 ). SRT is defined as a signal to noise ratio at which 50% of speech is comprehended. The SRT value was obtained for the constant value of speech L eqt = 65 db (equivalent sound level in linear scale without any frequency weighting), meaning that the values presented in Table 1 refer to the differences between the L eqt of speech and the L eqt of the environmental noise with which 50% of the speech was comprehended. In Table 2 the L eqt values of the noises (averaged over 4.5 s), and A-weighted equivalent sound levels, L AeqT, (averaged over 4.5 s) of the environmental noises are presented. Having the SRT values for all our stimuli and the L egt of speech, it was possible to calculate the L egt of each stimulus which caused the 50% of speech intelligibility. These values are presented in column 1 in Table 2.In the second column in Table 2 the sound pressure level corrected by curve A is presented. The reason for this is that in the study of annoyance all stimuli are described by dba rather than uncorrected db values. However, it should be added that the L AeqT values presented in Table 2 are not the original noise level recorded, for example, in a bus or tram. They represent the noise level of each stimulus which causes the 50% of speech intelligibility. The L AeqT presented in Table 2 for each environmental noise (the results of our previous study 18 ) is the Table 1 Speech reception threshold SRT (db). Noise SRT (db) Bus_in 27.9 Tram_in 23.7 Train_out 18.6 Tram_out 15.2 Street 12.8 School_in 9.7 Plane_out 9.4 Babble noise 7.9 Table 2 L eqt and L AeqT of each environmental noise at which 50% of speech (presented at L eqt = 65 db in noise) was comprehended. Noise L eqt db L AeqT dba Bus_in Tram_in Train_out Tram_out Street School_in Plane_out Babble noise reference value (different for each noise) and therefore marked as 0. In the present psychoacoustic experiment, altogether 7 L AeqT values for each environmental noise were applied. Except for the 0 values for each environmental noise (Table 2), the remaining 6 values were chosen as L AeqT 6, L AeqT 4, L AeqT 2, and L AeqT +2, L AeqT +4, L AeqT +6, and marked as numbers: 6, 4, 2, 2, 4, 6 db. These mean that the noise stimuli in the experiment were presented at the levels: L AeqT, from 62 dba (bubble noise in the 6 db condition) to 89 dba (Train_out in the +6 db condition). Thus the dynamic range of the stimuli used in the experiment was 27 dba. For these different L AeqT values of environment noises, the participants performed the speech intelligibility test and at the same time were asked to assess their difficulty with speech comprehension. 2.1 Stimuli and Equipment In the present study the same speech samples (as in our previous study 18, and eight out of nine previously studied noise samples, were applied Speech samples The speech material was recorded in an acoustically treated lecture booth using a G.R.A.S. omnidirectional microphone Type 40AN placed 40 cm from the mouth. The signals were recorded at Hz sampling frequency, with 24 bits resolution, using an RME DIGI96 PRO audio interface. Each sentence s duration was about 2.5 s. Different signal to noise ratios were obtained by changing the sound level values of the noise while the speech signals were presented at a constant equivalent sound level, L eqt equals 65 db. The Polish sentence matrix test (PSMT) was applied to measure the intelligibility of speech presented against noise 19. The term speech intelligibility means the rate Noise Control Engr. J. 61 (3), May-June

4 of correct answers, with sentences consisting of 5 words. The PSMT consists of 10 names, 10 verbs, 10 numerals, 10 adjectives, and 10 nouns, i.e. a total of 50 different words that can be used to build different sentences. It was not possible to guess the whole sentence if the participants got to know only a few key words correctly. More details and the properties of the PSMT can be found in Ref Noise samples Eight environmental noises which were recognized as typical obstacles in interpersonal communication were used in this study. The noises were prepared from recordings made in the following scenarios: 1. noise in a school corridor during the break (School_in). 2. a busy road taken about 35 meters from the middle of the road (Street). 3. a bus interior (Neoplan) during normal drive conditions (Bus_in). 4. a tram type 105N2k-2000 interior during the normal drive conditions (Tram_in). 5. a jet airplane over-flight (Plane_out). 6. an Inter-City train pass-by taken 25 m from the rail track (Train_out). 7. a tram type 105n pass-by taken 25 m from the rail track (Tram_out). 8. babble noise (uniform noise created from speech by averaging a large amount of a Polish-language speech material) (Babble noise). All the recordings of noises were made with a B&K binaural microphone Type 4101-A and a B&K PULSE time data recorder Type 7708N5, at a sampling frequency Hz and 24 bits resolution. The recordings were afterwards down-sampled to Hz. The noise samples were prepared from the noises described above by selecting a 4.5 second section in which the level changes were minimal. In practice, the level changes within each 4.5 second noise sample were below 3 db. At the same time, the 1/3 octave frequency analysis of the investigated environmental noises shows the different shape of Bus_in and Train_out spectra (see spectral analysis in Ref. 18). 2.2 Procedure The method of constant stimuli was used to obtain the speech intelligibility function for 7 values of L AeqT for each noise, marked, as explained above, as 6, 4, 2, 0, 2, 4, 6 values. Twenty speech stimuli consisting of 5 randomly chosen words from the Polish sentence matrix test (PSMT) were in turn presented to the participants together with one of the 8 noise stimuli. The speech was presented to the participants at a constant level: L eqt equals 65 db. Experiment I consisted of two parts. In the first part the speech and the noise were presented to the listener. After the utterance of a sentence, a five column (names, verbs, numerals, adjectives, nouns) 50-word push-button panel was displayed on an LCD screen. The participants task was to indicate words from the played-back sentence and confirm their choice with the OK button. In this way speech intelligibility was measured (see Fig. 1). The marked cells in Fig. 1 represent an example of one possible sentence presented to the participants. In the second part of the experiment, after each utterance the participants were prompted to assess the difficulty they had in comprehending the speech, on an ascending scale from 0 to 10, where 0 means not at all difficult and 10 extremely difficult (see Fig. 2). 2.3 Participants Nineteen university students, 8 males and 11 females, aged between 20 and 25, took part in the psychoacoustic experiment. All had normal hearing (inclusion criterion was 15 db maximum allowable hearing loss at threshold). Fig. 1 The 50-word push-button panel used in Experiment I. 258 Noise Control Engr. J. 61 (3), May-June 2013

5 Fig. 2 Push-button with a question about the difficulty with speech comprehension. 2.4 Results Speech intelligibility function for eight environmental noises The averaged (over subjects) speech intelligibility functions obtained for all stimuli at 7 L AeqT values are presented in Fig. 3. The repeated measurements ANOVA design resulted in a statistically significant main effect namely environmental noise type [F(7,144) = 26.03; p < 0.001]. However, only one noise shows a statistically significant effect when compared with all the other noises. This was the noise Bus_in Assessment of difficulty in speech comprehension for eight environmental noises The medians representing the measure of difficult in speech comprehension obtained for all stimuli at 7 L AeqT values are presented in Fig. 4. The difficulty in speech comprehension was measured using the category scale and since the data do not fulfill the statistical requirements of normal distributions (z = 19.37, p < 0.001) a nonparametric Median test was applied to decide whether the medians were different or the same for the investigated environmental noises. The main Fig. 3 Average speech intelligibility function for eight environmental noises expressed as an arithmetical means. Fig. 4 The measure of difficulty with speech comprehension obtained for eight environmental noises expressed as medians. Noise Control Engr. J. 61 (3), May-June

6 Fig. 5 The relationship between difficulty with speech comprehension and speech intelligibility for all environmental noises. result shows a significant difference between the medians for the investigated noises [chi 2 (7, N = 1064) = 28; p < 0.001]. However, detailed pair comparisons show that only one stimulus, again Bus_in, was different when compared to the all other noises. This result holds for the three values of L AeqT, namely 0, 2 and 4. In all other cases there were no significant differences between the difficulty in speech comprehension obtained for all eight environmental noises Relationship between speech intelligibility and noise annoyance assessment The relationship between the speech intelligibility data and difficulty in speech comprehension data for each environmental noise is presented in Fig. 5. The pattern of this relationship is almost identical for each environmental noise. By applying the least squares analysis a quantitative equation for this curve was found. The best approximation gives the following function [Eqn. (1)]. y ¼ 5x þ 9:7 ð1þ where y means difficulty in speech comprehension and x speech intelligibility. Having this function, we can predict noise annoyance on the basis of the results of the speech intelligibility test. However, this model of the noise annoyance index related to a communicative activity has a limitation: it only works for the speech intelligibility tests where speech is presented at 65 db and any change in the sound level of environmental noise is within the 3 db range. As an example, if a given noise from the speech intelligibility received a score of 0.2, then according to Eqn. (1) the predicted difficulty in speech comprehension in the presence of this noise should be around 8.7 on the ICBEN scale of noise annoyance. The repeated measurements ANOVA design does not take into account the differences between subjects. However, by using additional post hoc analysis it is possible to compare responses from our subjects in both experiments: the speech intelligibility test and difficulty in speech comprehension. It turned out that there were not statistically significant differences between subjects for all noises according to the Kruskal Wallis test (T(18) = p = 0.479) for the speech intelligibility test, while the differences were significant among subjects in annoyance date, we have got T(18) = , p < 0.001). This result gives us an additional reason why the noise annoyance experiment could be replaced by a speech intelligibility test. 3 EXPERIMENT II: ASSESSMENT OF NOISE ANNOYANCE PRESENTED ALONE The traditional method was used to assess the noise annoyance caused by the eight environmental noises presented alone. Usually when people are sitting in a lab and participating in a traditional annoyance experiment, they are asked to imagine themselves at home after a day of hard work, resting. In our study we named this situation as a rest activity. The participants task was to assess the annoyance caused by each noise by using the 11-point annoyance scale. The results obtained from this experiment were compared with the measures of difficulty in speech comprehension investigated in the previous experiment. The aim of Experiment II was to find out whether there is a correlation between the difficulty with speech comprehension (which we assume could be a measure of noise annoyance caused by environmental noises) recorded during the communicative activity and the annoyance measure of the same noises when presented under the rest activity. 3.1 Stimuli and Equipment The traditional method of noise annoyance assessment was applied to the same noise stimuli as in Experiment I, but now they were presented alone. Eight noise 260 Noise Control Engr. J. 61 (3), May-June 2013

7 Fig. 6 Push-button with the question about the noise annoyance scaling. samples were presented at 7 levels, 20 times. This gave = 1120 different combinations. The stimuli were divided into 10 series. Each subject listened to 112 sentences in each series. The sentence sequence in each series was the same, but the 10 series were presented to the subjects randomly. 3.2 Procedure After listening to each noise, participants were asked to answer the question presented in Fig. 6. Each noise was presented randomly to the listener 20 times. 3.3 Participants The same 19 listeners who participated in Experiment I took part in Experiment II. Both experiments were completely separate in time (2 months difference between them). We decided to ask the same group of subjects to participate in both tests in order to minimize the number of variables. 3.4 Results The noise annoyance assessments of eight environmental noises expressed as medians are presented in Fig. 7. The noise annoyance was measured using the category scale and the nonparametric Median test was applied to decide whether the medians were different or the same for the investigated environmental noises. It turned out that there is a significant difference between the noises [chi 2 (7, N = 1064) = 72.6; p < 0.001]. Detailed pair comparisons show that two stimuli were different when compared with all the others. These were the Bus_in and Train_out stimuli. The different spectral shapes of the Bus_in and Train_out from the shapes of all the other stimuli are responsible for the differences in the obtained noise annoyance ratings. 4 COMPARISON OF THE RESULTS OF NOISE ANNOYANCE JUDGMENTS RELATED TO DIFFICULTY IN SPEECH COMPREHENSION (EX. 1) AND NOISE ANNOYANCE JUDGMENTS FOR NOISES PRESENTED ALONE (EX. 2 TRADITIONAL METHOD) There is a clear similarity between the patterns of curves obtained in the two independent experiments, regarding the assessment of noise annoyance while subjects were engaged in different activities: the communication activity (Fig. 4) and rest activity (Fig. 7). However, the scatter of noise annoyance in Fig. 7 seems to be greater than that in Fig. 4. The Fig. 7 Noise annoyance ratings obtained for eight environmental noises expressed as medians. Noise Control Engr. J. 61 (3), May-June

8 Fig. 8 Relationship between results obtained in two experiments: Difficulty with speech comprehension versus traditional annoyance rating obtained for eight investigated noises. possible reason for this is that it was easier (smaller scatter) for subjects to assess the difficulty in speech comprehension than the annoyance caused by the noises presented alone. The question is whether the annoyance ratings that listeners assigned to each noise were the same or different in these two experiments. One way to prove the equality of the speech comprehension ratings and the annoyance ratings is to use a measure of correlation between the results obtained in these two experiments. The relationship between the averaged medians of difficulty in speech comprehension and traditional annoyance judgments of noises is presented in Fig. 8. Equality in the ratings obtained in both experiments would mean that all the data should be placed on the broken line in Fig. 8 and the R value should be 1. This is not the case. The correlation coefficient, R, equals at p = It is clear that higher values of annoyance ratings were assigned to the same noises when they disturbed the communicative activity than when they disturbed the rest activity. However, the problem is that in both experiments the noise level should be considered as an intervening variable. Noise level is related to annoyance ratings (as a lot of dose response relationships show) and it influences speech intelligibility by changing SNR. The correlation between difficulty with speech intelligibility and traditional annoyance has to be calculated by eliminating the noise level as an intervening variable (by calculating partial correlation). If such a partial correlation was calculated, the correlation coefficient, R, has dropped to the value which equals at p < Another way of analyzing the results of our experiments is presented in Fig. 9. All the investigated measures: speech intelligibility, difficulty in speech comprehension, and annoyance rating, are presented versus L Aeq,4.5s value, objectively measured for each investigated environmental noise. This value usually describes the noise annoyance index. Having these results for given environmental noises, it is possible to predict which value of L Aeq,4.5s will create a given speech intelligibility score, a given difficulty in speech comprehension or a given annoyance rating. Let us consider the example of two different noises, Plane_out and Train_out. Their L Aeq,4.5s values, which generated the speech intelligibility score that equals 0.7, for example, were respectively (see Fig. 9(c)) 71 and 83 db. This means that for these noises, such values, when presented together with speech (at the L eq,4.5s = 65 db) will both create difficulty in speech comprehension that equals (see Fig. 9(a)) 7 on the scale, and when presented alone (see Fig. 9(b)) they will both create an annoyance rating equal to 5.5 on the scale. This example shows the possible exemplary application of the results obtained in this study. It turned out that the same speech intelligibility scores obtained in the test where speech at the normal level was presented together with different noises (representing the typical sound sources) generate the same measures on the difficulty in speech comprehension scale, and the same measures on the traditional annoyance scale. Numerically these two values could be different (difficulty in speech comprehension and traditional noise annoyance) as was presented in the example: the 0.7 speech intelligibility score means 7 on the difficulty in speech comprehension scale and 5.5 in the noise annoyance scale. What is most important is that each of these measures shows different L AeqT values for different noises. We got information on how big the differences in L AeqT between different noises could be in order to generate the same annoyance assessment in two situations: when a given noise disturbs our verbal communication and our rest. It is enough to perform the speech intelligibility test to have all this information. This study delivers this kind of information only in a limited range, however. First of all, the results were obtained in situations where the speech was presented at certain value of L eqt = 65 db. Although such a value represents the speech level of normal speech at 1 m the results of our study could be different for another value of speech level. Secondly, only a limited number of different sound sources were investigated (8 environmental noises). Finally, we have to admit that the range of the L AeqT of our stimuli is limited to 27 db. Each 262 Noise Control Engr. J. 61 (3), May-June 2013

9 environmental noise has a different value of SRT (see Table 1) and it gives a different L AeqT range. The total range of equivalent sound levels used in this study should be calculated as max SRT + 6 db and min SRT 6 db. This gives (see Table 2) in dba of = 27 db. Our study shows only the recipe for how to design the experiments in order to gather the knowledge needed to use the speech intelligibility test as an indicator of possible annoyance assessment (of noise when it disturbs communicative or rest activities). Fig. 9 Difficulty with speech comprehension (a) Annoyance rating (b) Speech intelligibility scores (c) Versus L Aeq, 4.5s for eight investigated noises. 5 DISCUSSION There is no question that the traditional method of noise annoyance judgment is still valid and necessary. However, it should be noted that such noise annoyance judgments refer to situations where subjects are resting during the assessment procedure. When annoyance judgments of the same noises are performed when subjects are engaged in activities other than resting, one could expect different responses. In our study a measure of correlation between the results of noise annoyance obtained in these two conditions was used to show these differences. As was shown in Fig. 8, there is a significant correlation between the noise annoyance ratings obtained in these two conditions. There is also the relationship between speech intelligibility and difficulty in speech comprehension described by the linear function y = 5x [Eqn. (1)]. This relationship was obtained for 7 different L AeqT values for eight environmental noises (in Experiment I). However, an even more important result of this study is that, based on the speech intelligibility scores obtained for a given noise and a given noise level value (L AeqT ), it is possible to predict the annoyance rating during a communicative activity (the difficulty in speech comprehension) and annoyance rating during a resting activity for this L AeqT value. There is one point in this study which needs clarification: the difference in annoyance rating obtained for the same noise conditions marked as the 0 value in this study (a 50% intelligibility score corresponds to an annoyance rating of 6) compared to our previous study (a 50% intelligibility score corresponded to an annoyance rating of 7). One of the possible explanations is the difference in methods used in both studies: the adaptive method ( 1 up 1down ) in the previous study and the method of constant stimuli in the present study. This difference does not seem to be critical because the annoyance rating usually occurs in the range of ±1 on the annoyance scale. The outcome of this study is limited to situations where speech is presented to the participants at a 65 db sound pressure level and any changes in the Noise Control Engr. J. 61 (3), May-June

10 sound level of environmental noise are within the 3 db range. 6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This work was supported by a grant from Norway through the Norwegian Financial Mechanism project no. PNRF-167-AI-1/07. 7 REFERENCES 1. ISO, Acoustics description, assessment and measurement of environmental noise part 1: basic quantities and assessment procedures, (2003). 2. American National Standards Institute, Methods for calculation of the speech intelligibility index, ANSI S3.5 (2007). 3. Acoustics assessment of noise annoyance by means of social and socio-acoustical surveys, International Standard, ISO/TS 15666:2003(E), International Organization for Standardization, (2003). 4. European Union, Directive 2002/49/EC relating to assessment and management of environmental noise, (2002). 5. C. Marquis-Favre, E. Premat and D. Aubree, Noise and its effects a review on qualitative aspects of sounds. Part II. Noise and annoyance, Acta Acoustica/Acustica, 91, , (2005). 6. K.D. Kryter, Methods for the calculation and use of the articulation index, J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 34, , (1962). 7. R. Plomp and A.M. Mimpen, Speech-reception threshold for sentences as a function of age and noise level, J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 66, , (1979). 8. L.W. Ellis and L. Pakulski, Judgments of speech intelligibility and speech annoyance by mothers of children who are deaf or hard of hearing, Perceptual and Motor Skills, 96, 324 8, (2003). 9. T. Tamesue, S. Yamaguchi and T. Saeki, Psychological impression and listening score when listening to audio signals composed of monosyllables and words, while subject to meaningless steady-state noise introduction of weightedmean spectral distance, J. Sound Vibr., 271, , (2004). 10. K.S. Rhebergen, J. Lyzenga, W.A. Dreschler and J.M. Festen, Modeling speech intelligibility in quiet and noise in listeners with normal and impaired hearing, J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 127 (3), , (2010). 11. L.W. Ellis and D. Fucci, Sophisticated and naïve listeners magnitude estimation scaling judgments of speech intelligibility and speech annoyance, Perceptual and Motor Skills, 90 (3Pt 2), , (2000). 12. G. Aniansson and M. Björkman, Traffic noise annoyance and speech intelligibility in persons with normal and person with impaired hearing, J. Sound Vibr., 88(1), , (1983). 13. B. Berglund, U. Berglund and T. Lindvall, Scaling loudness. noisiness and annoyance of aircraft noise, J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 57, , (1975). 14. A. Preis, T. Kaczmarek, H. Wojciechowska, J. Żera and J.M. Fields, Polish version of the standardized noise reaction questions for the community noise surveys, International Journal of Medicine and Environmental Health, 16, , (2003). 15. K.D. Kryter, The Handbook of Hearing and the Effects of Noise, Academic Press, San Diego, (1994). 16. J.M. Fields, et al., Standardized general-purpose noise reaction questions for community noise surveys: research and a recommendation, J. Sound Vibr., 242, , (2001). 17. T. Kaczmarek and A. Preis, Annoyance of time-varying road traffic noise, Archives of Acoustics, 35(3), , (2010). 18. A. Preis, H. Hafke-Dys, T. Kaczmarek and T. Gjestland, The relationship between speech reception thresholds and the assessment of annoyance caused by different environmental noises, Noise Control Engr. J., 59(4), , (2011). 19. E. Ozimek, A. Warzybok and D. Kutzner, Polish sentence matrix test for speech intelligibility measurement in noise, International. Journal of Audiology, 49, , (2010). 264 Noise Control Engr. J. 61 (3), May-June 2013

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