A FIELD SURVEY ON ANNOYANCE CAUSED BY SOUNDS FROM SMALL FIREARMS

In this study, the results of a field survey on annoyance caused by sounds from small firearms are presented. Dose-response relationships were determined for about 400 randomly selected residents around two military and three civil shooting sites. After completion of personal interviews, extensive sound measurements with different time-weightings were carried out. Also, for the same respondents, the subjective effects of road-traffic sounds were determined enabling a comprehensive comparison of dose-response relations for impulse sounds and road-traffic sounds. The results show that A-weighted equivalent sound-pressure level, Leq, is a better acoustical measure for the prediction of annoyance caused by shooting sounds than the mean“impulse” or “fast” time-weighted levels of individual impulses. The results of a principal components analysis showed that the subjective effects of the shooting sounds could be reduced to one overall psychological dimension with high negative loadings on object-centered and subject-centered annoyances, moderate positive loadings on perceived quality of the environment and high positive loadings on habituation to the impulse sounds. From the comparison of the dose-response relations for shooting and road-traffic sounds, it could be concluded that at least for relatively low and moderate levels, the A-weighted Leqof shooting sound is about 13 dB lower than that of equally annoying road-traffic sound. © 1990, Acoustical Society of America. All rights reserved.