Preferred masking levels of water sounds according to various noise background levels in small scale open plan offices

This study aims to investigate the preferred sound level of water sound for various levels of open-plan-office noise regarding soundscape quality and speech privacy. And assessment of the work efficiency of the water sound. For the laboratory experiment, office noise was recorded using a binaural microphone in a real open-plan office. For the assessment of the soundscape quality and speech privacy, Overall Soundscape Quality (OSQ) and Listening Difficulty (LD) were evaluated under three different sound levels (55 dBA, 60 dBA, and 65 dBA) and five different signal-to-noise ratios (SNR -10 dB, -5 dB, 0 dB, +5 dB, and +10 dB). After the evaluation, the preferred SNR was proposed according to OSQ and LD. For the assessment of to work efficiency of water sound, this study evaluated the cognitive performance of both of the condition noise only and combine the water sound with office noise. The results showed that LD increased as the water sound level increased, but OSQ decreased. When the water sound level was more than the office noise level, the OSQ decreased from noise only. Therefore, considering OSQ and LD, the preferred SNR of water sound was -5 dB for all noise levels. At the preferred level of water sound, the cognitive performance results were shown to decrease at 55 dBA compared to noise only, but at 60 dBA and 65 dBA combine the water sound results were increased than the noise only.