Magnitude estimation scaling of annoyance in response to rock music: effects of sex and listeners' preference.

The present study parallels an earlier one Fucci, Petrosino, and Banks in 1994 concerned with sex and listeners' preference effects on magnitude estimation scaling of rock music. The difference between the two studies is that the subjects in 1994 were asked to scale "loudness" while the present subjects were asked to scale "annoyance." The prior results and those of the present study were different, i.e., the women's preference appeared influential in the magnitude estimation scaling of rock music previously but here the men's preference appeared influential. If subjects are instructed to judge the annoyance of an auditory signal, they may respond differently than if asked to judge its loudness. Judgments of annoyance appear to be more context dependent whereas loudness judgments may reflect a perceptual process more closely related to physical aspects of the signal.