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Presence of 1/f Noise in the Temporal Structure of Psychoacoustic Parameters of Natural and Urban Sounds

Yang, M; De Coensel, B; Kang, J; (2015) Presence of 1/f Noise in the Temporal Structure of Psychoacoustic Parameters of Natural and Urban Sounds. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America , 138 (2) pp. 916-927. 10.1121/1.4927033. Green open access

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Abstract

1/f noise or pink noise, which has been shown to be universal in nature, has also been observed in the temporal envelope of music, speech, and environmental sound. Moreover, the slope of the spectral density of the temporal envelope of music has been shown to correlate well to its pleasing, dull, or chaotic character. In this paper, the temporal structure of a number of instantaneous psychoacoustic parameters of environmental sound is examined in order to investigate whether a 1/f temporal structure appears in various types of sound that are generally preferred by people in everyday life. The results show, to some extent, that different categories of environmental sounds have different temporal structure characteristics. Only a number of urban sounds considered and birdsong, generally, exhibit 1/f behavior on short to medium duration time scales, i.e., from 0.1 s to 10 s, in instantaneous loudness and sharpness, whereas a more chaotic variation is found in birdsong at longer time scales, i.e., of 10 s–200 s. The other sound categories considered exhibit random or monotonic variations in the different time scales. In general, this study shows that a 1/f temporal structure is not necessarily present in environmental sounds that are commonly perceived as pleasant.

Type: Article
Title: Presence of 1/f Noise in the Temporal Structure of Psychoacoustic Parameters of Natural and Urban Sounds
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1121/1.4927033
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1121/1.4927033
Language: English
Additional information: This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions.
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment > Bartlett School Env, Energy and Resources
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10058514
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