Analysis of car door closing sound quality

The perception of the noise coming from a car's door closure has been analyzed, the focus being put on the image of the quality of the car that the listener can have in mind while hearing the sound. Different experiments have been realized: a free sorting experiment for reducing the number of stimuli without any loss of generality, paired comparisons with similarity and preference ratings and, finally, free verbalizations analysis. The results have agreed on the importance of two timbre parameters, the frequency balance of the sound and its cleanness (only one temporal event should be audible). In particular, even if loudness had appeared as the most important sound feature in previously published studies, it did not in this one; the reason is probably that previous studies had focused on annoyance creating by sounds. In a more general way, this study has proved the stability of the perceptual space derived from two different methods: a multi-dimensional analysis of similarity ratings and the analysis of free verbalizations. (C) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.