Extending Sottek Hearing Model loudness to estimate partially-masked sound qualities of loudness, tonality, and sharpness

Journal article, 2026

The Sottek Hearing Model provides a means to analyse perceptual sound qualities including loudness, tonality, roughness, and fluctuation strength. An extension to the loudness algorithms is described, which addresses cases in which a source of interest is partially masked by other sounds, such as an encompassing ambient acoustic environment. The proposed extension is validated with objective predictions for unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and artificial noise, and subjective test results for UAS. The partial loudness extension proposed also enables the calculation of further partial sound qualities, including partial tonality, partial tonal loudness, and partial sharpness. Software implementations of the tools are provided.