Design of vehicle horn sound as a communication tool for driversconsidering its environmental impact

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To investigate the design of vehicle horn sound by taking into account the functionality as a warning signal and its effects on not only drivers but also people outside the vehicle, psychoacoustical experiments and questionnaire surveys concerning vehicle horn use were carried out. The survey revealed frequent vehicle horn uses for the purposes other than avoiding the dangerous situations (e.g., for expressing gratitude), and many pedestrians who had experienced being honked at by a car driver. Furthermore, the relationships between acoustical characteristics of horn sounds and auditory impressions were given by the experiments. Considering the current circumstances of vehicle horn use, the present study recommended that the horn sound with principle components in the low-frequency region was employed.