Reproduced sound pressure level yielding the maximum auditory presence: Further study on effects of reproduced SPLs on auditory presence

The effects of reproduced sound pressure level (SPL) on auditory presence were studied. A scaling procedure was separately applied to the data for each material, composed of sounds and moving pictures, to derive the relative auditory presence for the five or six sounds of each materials. The SPL that was higher than the original one yields the maximum auditory presence, when a sound was presented to a listener with its corresponding moving picture. It was shown that the SPL at the maximum presence was more than 10 dB higher than the original one for a waterfall with a large visual angle. The permissible SPL range shifts higher, that is, louder sound becomes acceptable as natural, if a given picture evokes an image of 'a loud sound source'.