Sound masking of residential noise by a birdsong depending on spectral and temporal characteristics

This study aimed to investigate the sound masking according to spectral and temporal characteristics of residential noise and natural sound through auditory experiment. Since there are various types of residential noise sources (maskee) and natural sounds (masker), stimuli to be used for experiment were selected by dividing the sound source groups through the k-means cluster method. The stimuli consisted of a total of 7 maskee including a brown noise, and 7 masker (birdsongs and water sounds). In the auditory experiment, the preference of masker and the annoyance and unpleasantness of single maskee and masker and mixed sources (maskee+masker) were investigated. Result showed that Phoenicurus auroreus and stream-Fast were the highest preference among masker, and masker preference were significantly correlated with masker annoyance. In addition, it was found that impact sound (children jumping and running and piledriver) show relatively higher annoyance than other sound sources. Relative annoyance of mixed sources (maskee+masker) to single maskee was analyzed and masking effect was discussed based on spectral and temporal and the Zwicker's parameters of each sound source.