Effect of interaction between attention focusing capability and visual factors on road traffic noise annoyance

In recent decades, noise annoyance has been investigated thoroughly as one of the most prominent effects of traffic noise. Still, the influence of visual factors on sound perception is not completely understood. Audiovisual attention focusing and gating are expected to play a role at the perceptual stage. This would also imply the existence of inter-person differences in exposure-effect relationships beyond known factors such as noise sensitivity. To explore these hypotheses, an experiment was designed that combines a newly designed test on audiovisual attention focusing capabilities with a noise annoyance experiment conducted in a mockup living room. The noise annoyance experiment used 16 audiovisual stimuli, which are a combination of 4 window-view video sceneries and 4 sound fragments, to investigate the relative importance of sound source visibility and green elements visibility. In this setting, it was found that (1) sound source visibility, as a functional parameter of the visual setting, has more impact on self-reported noise annoyance than the green element's visibility which describes the quality of the visual; (2) self-reported noise sensitivity remains the strongest personal factor, yet persons being easily distracted by visual elements report significantly lower noise annoyance at the same exposure level; (3) two significant interactions were observed in the prediction of self-reported noise annoyance: (a) noise sensitivity interacts with sound source visibility; (b) vision dominance, as a personal factor, interacts with the visibility of green elements. The interaction between these factors provides additional evidence to support the role of audiovisual attention in the emergence of noise annoyance.