Neurodynamic-constrained psychophysical modelling for vehicle noise-induced sportiness perception

Sportiness perception constitutes a critical dimension of electric vehicle driving experience. Despite targeted acoustic enhancement to amplify this perception, the quantifiable and interpretable psychoacoustic correlations between objective sound characteristics and subjective sportiness values remain insufficiently revealed, constraining establishment of sound design frameworks. In this study, 15 interior sound stimuli were recorded in fuel or electric vehicles under varied driving conditions and calibrated to 60 dB(A). Psychoacoustic evaluation (n = 30) was conducted to quantify sportiness perception, and electroencephalography (EEG) recordings (n = 22) were analyzed to assess neural correlations. Results revealed that 4 Hz amplitude-modulated components significantly suppressed 4 Hz oscillations in primary motor cortex (electrode Cz) (r = -0.679, p < 0.01, Pearson), correlated with enhanced sportiness values (r = 0.747, p < 0.01, Pearson). Informed by neural responses, an initial psychoacoustic model incorporating acoustic predictors of loudness and 4/40 Hz modulation power was developed, outperforming the model with conventional sound quality metrics (adjusted R2 = 0.841 vs 0.682). These exploratory findings could advance our understanding of vehicular auditory sportiness perception and provides a psychophysical framework grounded in neural dynamics for optimizing immersive sound design in automotive engineering and virtual reality applications.