Relation between Reaction Time and Loudness

Abstract

The loudness of one-third octave bands of noise centered at either 1, 2, or 4 kHz was measured in 10 normal-hearing young adults for sound levels of 50–90 dB SPL. Reaction times (RT) in response to these same stimuli were also measured in the same subjects. A moderate-to-strong correspondence was observed between the slopes for functions depicting the growth of loudness with sound level and comparable slopes for the reaction-time data. The correlation between slopes for the RT-intensity function and the loudness-growth function was comparable in magnitude to the test,retest correlation for the loudness-growth function except at 1 kHz.