Characterizing Perception of Impulse Sounds Through Subjective Ratings and Pupillometric Responses.
Luca Wiederschein, Anna Schließ, Florian Denk and 1 others
Discomfort from sharp sounds like slamming doors kicks in later than loudness but rises much faster.
A reverberant room made both worse. Pupil size tracked what people rated, not the physical volume. Hearing tolerance and self-reported sound sensitivity did not predict individual ratings.
Key findings
1Discomfort stayed near zero up to about 90–95 dB SPL and then rose much more steeply than loudness, which increased gradually from the lowest tested level. The two scales were strongly coupled, with loudness explaining most of the variance in discomfort ratings.
2The reverberant condition produced significantly higher discomfort and loudness ratings than the anechoic condition for most impulse types, and also produced the largest pupil dilation response. Embedding the impulse in speech did not significantly change discomfort ratings.
3Once subjective rating was included in the model, physical presentation level no longer added explanatory power for pupil dilation. Neither pure-tone uncomfortable loudness level nor the Sound Sensitivity Symptoms Questionnaire score predicted ratings or pupil responses.
Still to come
How it was doneWhat they found
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
All 27 participants were young (19–29 years) normal-hearing adults, so the findings cannot be applied to hearing-impaired listeners or hearing-aid users. The reverberant condition used a single loudspeaker with a convolved office-room response, which is a coarse approximation of a natural diffuse reverberant field. The 10 dB level spacing limits the resolution of the fitted growth functions, and the strictly ascending level sequence made the next level predictable. The SSSQ2 questionnaire does not specifically capture sensitivity to transient or impulsive sounds, limiting conclusions about individual sound sensitivity. No hearing-aid impulse noise reduction algorithms were tested; the study characterizes unaided perception only. Calibration deviations at the highest levels (up to −8.4 dB for one stimulus) meant actual playback was slightly below target for a few conditions.
Declared interests
The corresponding author's position is partially funded by the William Demant Foundation. The authors declared no other conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the pupil dilation results as a ready-made clinical test for impulse sound discomfort. The 27 participants were all young normal-hearing adults, and the authors state the findings cannot be generalized to hearing-impaired listeners or hearing-aid users. Pupil dilation does not measure loudness or discomfort directly; it reflects overall salience and arousal.
Summarised by AI from the full paper, without a clinician reviewing it. Check it against the source before it changes what you do. Read it on PubMed →