Estimates of the instantaneous versus overall loudness of noise emissions

Usually when comparing the relations between instantaneous and overall loudness judgments of noise emmissions, the overall loudness is larger than the average of the instantaneous loudness judgments. Obviously, the prominent parts of a noise emmission play a crucial part in overall loudness judgment. Two models were proposed to describe the overall loudness on the basis of the instantaneous loudness judgments [Fastl, DAGA 97]. The merits of the different models in predicting the overall loudness of noise emissions with a different number of events were studied. For emissions with 2 up to 11 events within 15 min, a simple percentile of the instantaneous loudness judgments cannot predict overall loudness. However, when the events are prolonged by an exponential decay with 30-s time constant, the judgment of overall loudness can be predicted with an average accuracy of 6%.