Individual Influences on the Evaluation of Vehicle Sounds: A Typology of Premium Car Drivers with Regard to Their Attitude Towards Cars and Sounds

It is widely agreed that apart from acoustical properties personal factors such as expectation, experience or attitude also influence the evaluation of product sounds. However, there is a lack of concrete knowledge about the nature of this influence on vehicle sound evaluation. Vehicle sound design or the development of sound metrics could benefit from a better understanding of the role of personality in sound evaluation. This article aims to develop a characterization of premium car drivers with regard to their personality. This characterization will be used for further analysis of personal influences on the perception and evaluation of vehicle sounds. For this purpose an analysis was made of data from a survey that dealt with the assessment of, and wishes for, the sound of vehicles, as well as the attitude of the participants with regard to vehicles and sounds. More than 1,800 participants who were familiar with vehicles of premium makes, i.e., makes with a high perceived quality and value, took part in the survey. The analysis of the results reveals three driver types that show significant differences in vehicle sound evaluation, namely the sound-oriented fun-driver , the noise-sensitive aesthete and the sound-uninterested pragmatist .