1. Introduction
People evaluate vehicles based on a variety of design factors such as the overall appearance of the vehicle or the sound of the engine [
1,
2]. In response to consumers’ tendency to be satisfied when they come across products that exceed their expectations with superior features, many companies in the automotive industry have focused on developing design elements that satisfy the human senses [
3,
4].
Previous studies on the engine sound of an automobile have focused on reducing noise [
5]. This is because drivers are constantly exposed to the engine sound while driving and the noise has a deleterious effect on human health [
6]. Sleep disorders, learning impairment, heart disease, and emotional annoyance have been reported to be related to the exposure to the noise of automobiles [
7,
8,
9,
10].
Among various types of design elements that make up an automobile, sounds provide people with a variety of affective experiences. As a result, automobile companies seek to satisfy their customers by making efforts to advance the sound qualities, while establishing their own brand identity [
11,
12]. For example, when designing their automobiles, Maserati designs optimum engine sounds according to the drive-mode through consultation with pianists and composers. In addition, bayerische motoren werke (BMW) is seeking to apply its brand identity to engine sound with active sound design (ASD) system.
A variety of studies have been carried out to understand the semantic space of automobile sound quality, and the semantic space of customers has been derived from various components, such as engine, door, HVAC (heat ventilation air-conditions), etc. [
13,
14]. These studies generally begin with the collection of affective vocabulary associated with automobile sound from a variety of sources. In the previous studies on the collection of affective vocabulary, methodologies such as free verbalization, expert interview, and literature review were mainly used [
15]. These methods have the advantage of collecting affective vocabulary related to a _target object fast and diversely.
Most of the previous research on the sound quality of automobile engines have performed a sound evaluation for experts and trained evaluators to derive the semantic space of a specific sound source [
16,
17]. However, the expected affect of the expert on the sound quality of automobiles, and the degree of auditory affect and taste may be different from that of the consumer. Therefore, it is important to derive a proper semantic space from the viewpoint of the consumer by identifying various affective variables expressing the sound quality of the automobile engine [
18]. In addition, customers’ expectation of the sound quality of the automobile engine varies depending on the types of vehicle.
The sound quality of an automobile engine is structured by complicated phenomena, and various emotions, perceptions, and interpretations of people play an important role in evaluating it [
19]. Therefore, it is very important to determine a common affective vocabulary that appropriately expresses the sound quality of the automobile engine. Also, previous studies have shown that engine sounds have different affective responses to people according to various states such as idle, constant and acceleration speed [
4,
5]. In an automobile driven by an internal combustion engine, the engine has the greatest influence on the interior sound of the automobile [
20], and it generates a characteristic sound according to revolutions per minute (RPM).
The purpose of this study is to derive the representative affective dimensions of sound quality for automobile engine sound created by vehicle characteristics only for the end user, who has little prior knowledge or technical background on automobile sound. In addition, in this study, the relation with the RPM-based acoustic parameter was investigated in order to quantitatively explain the affective dimension. The remainder of this paper is organized as follows.
Section 2 introduces the background theories related to this study.
Section 3 describes data acquisition and research methods, and
Section 4 shows the results of the experiments. Finally, the discussions and results of this study are described in
Section 5 and
Section 6, respectively.
5. Discussion
This study aimed to verify that the affective response of the engine acceleration sound through acoustic parameters based on RPM occurs even for consumers who have no empirical knowledge about the automobile sound. In addition, it is found that a model can be designed to predict affective dimensions through acoustic parameters. As a result of the analysis, it was found that the engine acceleration sound developed a specific affective response of customers and the acoustic parameters based on RPM were suitable for explaining the affective response. It can be assumed that the subjects heard the engine acceleration sound for each automobile and recognized the developed affective dimensions relatively accurately.
As a result of the factor analysis, two representative factors: ‘Powerful’ and ‘Refined’ in the engine acceleration sound were extracted. Previous studies on automobile sounds that explored the relationship with various acoustic parameters, where ‘Luxurious’ and ‘Sporty’ were the representative affective dimension [
45,
46]. Kubo et al. [
41], have shown that the degree of the auditory affect felt by the driver varies depending on two driving circumstances. In the case of constant speed, two factors: ‘Pleasant’ and ‘Metallic’ were selected in 15 affective adjectives, but in the case of acceleration speed, three factors: ‘Powerful’, ‘Pleasant’ Three factors of ’Metallic’ were selected as 16 affective adjectives. Genell et al. [
47] derive three representative affective adjective factors for sound interior sound in the truck. Kuwano et al. [
48] selected 15 affective adjectives that user-perceived door sound in an automobile. From the factor analysis, three representative affective dimensions: metallic, pleasant, and powerful were derived.
In this study, seven affective adjectives belonged to ‘Refined’ and five affective adjectives belonged to ‘Powerful’. Compared to the research of Kubo et al. [
41], they performed an auditory evaluation on Germans, but this study was conducted on Koreans. As a result, it can be seen that there is a difference in the degree of the auditory affect to the engine acceleration sound depending not only on the automobile types but also on the races. Therefore, in a future study, it is necessary to clarify the difference of the affective dimensions according to race against engine acceleration sound.
According to the results of correlation analysis, in terms of ‘Refined’, it is confirmed that the value of the correlation coefficient is the highest in sharpness. Li and Huang [
32] examined the discomfort feeling of the interior noise in automobiles. They found that sharpness is one of the most important parameters when describing the discomfort of automobile sound. In terms of ‘Powerful’, it is correlated with various types of acoustic parameters compared to ‘Refined’. In the previous studies, ‘Powerful’ was one of the most mentioned variables in explaining the affective dimensions in the engine acceleration sound [
4,
49]. In this study, the acoustic parameters measured at the 2000 to 3500 RPM in the 3rd gear WOT sound showed a significant correlation with ‘Powerful’. Therefore, in designing the engine sound of an automobile such as sports car or muscle car that expects ‘Powerful’, the design that considers sound parameters in the corresponding RPM interval will be needed. As a result of the spectrum analysis for both types of automobiles with the same loudness, it was found that the pattern of dB-frequency is different (See
Figure 4). Therefore, when evaluating the acceleration sound of an automobile, it may be necessary to consider the various types of acoustic parameters and analyze them.
The results of the regression analysis show that different models were derived for each affective dimension. First, in the case of ‘Refined’, the optimal model considering the value of R
2 is consist of SPL
3500–5000, Sharpness
2000–5000, Fluctuation
2000–5000, and SPL-A
3500–5000. It can be confirmed that the affective dimensions such as satisfaction and comfort for the engine acceleration sound are similar to which previous researches have predicted through the psychoacoustic parameter [
32]. In addition, the value of the standardized beta of sharpness in the entire RPM range was larger than other parameters. Kwon et al. [
50] found that the psychoacoustic parameters describing the sporty sound are loudness and sharpness. They validated that sharpness had a negative effect on sound quality, and this study, too, confirmed it by obtaining the same results. In order to compare the high value of perceived refined and a low one, spectrum analysis was performed (See
Figure 5). It was established that the distribution of order is different. The sample with high perceived refined is clear in the main order and the value of SPL in the other areas is small. On the other hand, samples with low perceived refined had high SPL values in the entire RPM area and had many numbers of main orders. Therefore, it is necessary to consider additional variables related to the order of the engine sound as well as psychoacoustic parameters.
In the case of ‘Powerful’, a regression model was constructed with three parameters related to SPL. Since the SPL in 2000 to 5000 and 2000 to 3500 RPM is included in the regression model, it is essential to design the source in the direction of lowering the overall SPL and improving SPL-A at low rpm. In order to compare the high value of perceived power and a low one, spectrum analysis was performed (See
Figure 6). It can be seen that the band of the frequency at which the highest SPL is distributed is different. When the value of sound that perceived to be powerful was high, the power of the order seemed to be more obvious and it formed in high frequency as well.
6. Conclusions
The purpose of this study was to develop a model for predicting the affective response by acoustic parameters considering RPM on the engine acceleration sounds. In this study, 12 affective adjectives were selected through literature review, and representative affective dimensions of 3rd gear WOT sound was derived through factor analysis. In addition, acoustic parameters were selected to establish the models that predict the affective dimensions in engine acceleration sound. A total of 42 participants were recruited to the jury test. As a result of the analysis, it was confirmed that the acoustic parameters describing the affective dimensions appear differently based on the RPM. Especially, in the case of ‘Powerful’, SPL in two sections of RPM is found to be included in the regression equation. In addition, it was confirmed that the coefficient of determination of the regression equation for ‘Powerful’ is higher than that of ‘Refined’. Finally, through this study, equations for predicting the two kinds of representative affective dimensions of the engine acceleration were derived.
This study is essential to understand that the relationship between affective dimensions and acoustic parameters based on RPM can be different for each affective dimension. As a result of comparing the values of the coefficient of determination, it was confirmed that the range of the acoustic parameter and the range of RPM affecting each affective dimension are different. Therefore, in the future, there is a need to extend the research to the sound sources of various acceleration condition as well as the 3rd gear WOT performed in this study.
However, this study did not perform to examine all the vehicle segments present in the current automotive market, which makes it somewhat unreasonable to extend them to general results. Consequently, it will be possible to study designing and comparing prediction models for the entire vehicle segment by conducting additional research on SUV (sports utility vehicle) in the future. Through the present study, it was confirmed that the value of acoustic parameters at initial RPM is important in studies for the affective response of engine acceleration sound. In that respect, this report can be used as fundamental research to understand the acoustic factors that are necessary for designers when developing engine sound in an automobile. The results of this study are expected to provide a guideline to the design of automobile engine sounds that will understand the differences in perceptions of customers by vehicle segment and reflect actual customers’ needs.