Annoyance penalty of periodically amplitude-modulated wide-band sound.

Amplitude modulation exists in many environmental noise types. A penalty has been suggested for legal noise assessment to such sounds, but the scientific evidence is limited. The purpose of this research was to determine the annoyance penalty of amplitude modulated (AM) sound as a function of the modulation frequency f and depth D. A psychoacoustic laboratory experiment was conducted with 40 participants to explore how subjective loudness and annoyance of AM sound depends on f (from 0.25 to 16 Hz), D (from 1 to 14 dB), and overall spectrum (two alternatives). The sounds consisted of both AM sounds and reference sounds without amplitude modulation. The AM sounds were played at 35 dB L, which is typical for environmental noise both indoors and in residential yards. The annoyance penalty increased with increasing f and D. The penalties varied from 4 to 12 dB, when D ranged from 4 to 14 dB and f ranged from 1 to 16 Hz. For the lowest f= 0.25 Hz, and D = 1 dB, no penalty could be suggested. The results suggest a potential need for a penalty for low-level AM sounds for certain ranges of f and D, applied for the periods with AM sound.