Sharpness evaluation of temporally varying sounds

Sharpness is an important attribute when sound quality of machinery noise is considered. It has been reported that calculated sharpness shows good correspondence with the impression of sharpness. In most cases, the maximum value of calculated sharpness is used for the evaluation. In this study what kind of representative value is appropriate to express the impression of sharpness of temporally varying sounds. 41 kinds of the sound of home electric appliances and their modification were used as stimuli. Sharpness values were calculated every 100ms and two kinds of representative value, i.e. arithmetic mean of the calculated sharpness and maximum values, were related to the impression of sharpness. As the result, it was found that the arithmetic mean shows better correspondence with the impression of sharpness than the maximum values.