Squeaking noise psychoacoustic evaluation for car passengers

This paper deals with the proposal of evaluation indexes of annoyance and pleasantness due to squeaking noises in vehicle cabins. Indexes represent the average sensation of a S.A.O. (Statistical Average Observer) which was subjected to a jury test. The investigation was carried out by these following main steps: a measurement campaign conducted to record squeaking noise signals near the passenger’s hearing position; an objective analysis to evaluate psychoacoustic metrics for each squeaking noise signal; a jury test to detect annoyance and pleasantness due to each noise signal by a Semantic Differential and Pair Comparison methods. At last, psychoacoustic indexes were found by regressive analysis. Indexes correlate “No annoyance” and “Pleasantness” to the psychoacoustic metrics.