Uncomfortableness to vacuum cleaner noise according to the mental state between active and passive situation

Robot vacuum cleaner which cleans rooms automatically is useful products to reduce house work time. At the development phase of vacuum cleaners including the robot cleaners, the radiated noise reduction is essential. Generally, when we are exposed by the radiated noise of conventional type cleaners, the noise is perceived actively because we clean room by ourselves and we can expect the motion. On the other hand, robot vacuum cleaner moves automatically without our indication, hence we hear the noise passively. Therefore, this difference of mental state may make difference of uncomfortableness to the vacuum cleaner's noise. If there is significant difference between them, the target level of the radiated noise of robot cleaners should be set considering the difference. In this study, the aim is to reveal the difference in uncomfortableness of different mental state using subjective evaluation test. In the test, we prepared the above mentioned 2-mental state using cordless type vacuum cleaners and the participants evaluated the uncomfortableness in each condition. The result showed the participants felt more uncomfortable in passive condition than active condition. Consequently, we found that lower target sound pressure level had better to be set for robot vacuum cleaners than the conventional cleaners.