On the relationship between land use and sound sources in the urban environment

The purpose of this case study was to explore the relationship between land use and sound sources and how to characterize urban environments in this respect. To this end, binaural recordings and 360° videos were used in a listening experiment, where 20 university students assessed the dominance of sound sources coupled with the appropriateness of land use variables and variables of social and recreational activities. Principal Components Analysis showed that the activity-based environment can be explained by two main components related to the degree of manmade features and the density of people. These components are closely associated with sounds

A field experiment on the impact of sounds from a jet-and-basin fountain on soundscape quality in an urban park

AbstractA field experiment was conducted to explore whether water sounds from a fountain had a positive impact on soundscape quality in a downtown park. In total, 405 visitors were recruited to answer a questionnaire on how they perceived the park, including its acoustic environment. Meanwhile the fountain was turned on or off, at irregular hours. Water sounds from the fountain were not directly associated with ratings of soundscape quality. Rather, the predictors of soundscape quality were the variables “Road-traffic noise” and “Other natural sounds”. The former had a negative and the latter a positive impact. However, water sounds may have had an indirect impact on soundscape quality by affecting the audibility of road-traffic and natural sounds. The present results, obtained in situ, agree with previous results in soundscape research that the sounds perceived—particularly roadtraffic and natural sounds—explain soundscape quality. They also agree with the results from laboratory studies that water sounds may mask road-traffic sounds, but that this is not simple and straight forward. Thus sound should be brought into the design scheme when introducing water features in urban open spaces, and their environmental impact must be thoroughly assessed empirically

Soundscape descriptors and a conceptual framework for developing predictive soundscape models

Soundscape exists through human perception of the acoustic environment. This paper investigates how soundscape currently is assessed and measured. It reviews and analyzes the main soundscape descriptors in the soundscape literature, and provides a conceptual framework for developing predictive models in soundscape studies. A predictive soundscape model provides a means of predicting the value of a soundscape descriptor, and the blueprint for how to design soundscape. It is the key for implementing the soundscape approach in urban planning and design. The challenge is to select the appropriate soundscape descriptor and to identify its predictors. The majority of available soundscape descriptors are converging towards a 2-dimensional soundscape model of perceived affective quality (e.g., Pleasantness–Eventfulness, or Calmness–Vibrancy). A third potential dimension is the appropriateness of a soundscape to a place. This dimensions provides complementary information beyond the perceived affective quality. However, it depends largely on context, and because a soundscape may be appropriate to a place although it is poor, this descriptor must probably not be used on its own. With regards to predictors, or soundscape indicators, perceived properties of the acoustic environment (e.g., perceived sound sources) are winning over established acoustic and psychoacoustic metrics. To move this area forward it is necessary that the international soundscape community comes together and agrees on relevant soundscape descriptors. This includes to agree on numerical scales and assessment procedures, as well as to standardize them

Soundscape assessment : towards a validated translation of perceptual attributes in different languages

The recently published ISO/TS 12913-2:2018 standard aims to provide researchers and practitioners around the world with a reliable questionnaire for soundscape characterization. The ISO Technical Specifications report protocols and attributes grounded in the soundscape literature, but only includes an English version. The applicability and reliability of these attributes in non-English speaking regions remains an open question, as research investigating translations of soundscape attributes is limited. To address this gap, an international collaboration was initiated with soundscape researchers from all over the world. Translation into 15 different languages, obtained through focus groups and panels of experts in soundscape studies, are proposed. The main challenges and outcomes of this preliminary exercise are discussed. The long-term objective is to validate the proposed translations using standardized listening experiments in different languages and geographical regions as a way to promote a widespread use of the soundscape attributes, both in academia and practice, across locations, populations and languages

Towards guidelines for soundscape design

Book of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Definite Space – Fuzzy Responsibility, Prague, 13-16th July, 2015Architects and urban planners request guidelines with regards to soundscape design. In 2013 staff and students at the University of Sheffield, UK, were invited to take part in an electronic survey to investigate what kinds of urban open spaces that they prefer, and how these spaces should be designed with regards to soundscape. Respondents were asked to freely name their favourite outdoor place in Sheffield, and to what extent they found a list of 45 social and recreational activities, as well as a list of 40 sound sources appropriate for this place. A total of 935 individuals completed the questionnaire. A hierarchical cluster analysis of the 45 social and recreational activities revealed three main categories of favourite outdoor places: ‘Urban Park’, ‘City Centre’, and ‘My Space’. For ‘Urban Park’ natural sounds were appropriate when clearly audible, sounds of individuals when moderately audible, sounds of crowds when slightly audible, and technological sounds when inaudible. For ‘City Centre’ sounds of individuals were appropriate when moderately audible, whereas natural sounds, and sounds of crowds were appropriate when slightly audible. Technological sounds were appropriate when inaudible. For ‘My Space’ natural sounds and sounds of individuals were appropriate when moderately audible, whereas sounds of crowds and technological sounds were appropriate when inaudible. This kinds of profiles may serve as design guidelines for urban outdoor spaces with regards to soundscape, based on their social and recreational purposes.Published Versio

TYPO-MORPHOLOGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL PERCEPTION OF URBAN SPACE

Proceedings of the XXV ISUF International Conference “Urban Form and Social Context: from Traditions to Newest Demands” (Krasnoyarsk, July 5–9, 2018)Urban morphologists intuitively understand and abstract patterns and elements of cities. Typo-morphology is an approach in urban morphology that classifies urban elements by their morphological characteristics. This paper discusses how the urban form affects different perceptual modalities. Vision is the dominant sense in humans, and the predominant focus in architecture and urban design. Visual perception is enhanced when supported by related auditory cues and vice versa. Sounds provide an important link to reality, are enriching and protective. We pay more attention to sources we can hear but not see, for example a car approaching from behind. Without sound, visual perception is less contrast and less informative. Urban design can be understood as the art of arranging urban elements, such as streets, buildings, sidewalks, urban furniture, vegetation etc. to meet human needs. It is important for urban designers to understand the urban form in the context of environmental perception and cognition related to the urban space for informed urban design

Perceived quality of urban open space: a Stockholm case study

Book of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017In investigating the quality of urban open space, it is important to investigate how the visual and auditory components contribute to the total quality. The majority of studies investigating audio-visual interaction in environmental perception have concerned how visual stimuli affect auditory perception, such as how vegetation affects the perception of the sound of road traffic from a motorway (e.g., Anderson, Mulligan, Goodman, Regen, 1983). In general, these studies indicate that how people perceive sound depends on the visual context. That is, some sounds are more appropriate in one context than in another, which seems to depend on the participants’ expectations. For example, a city center is expected to sound like a city center, and not like a forest, and vice versa. Typically, a mismatch resulted in discomfort. A handful of laboratory studies investigated how perception of auditory and visual aspects related to the perception of the composite of audio-visual information (e.g., Gifford & Ng, 1982; Kuwano, Namba, Komatsu, Kato, & Hayashi, 2001; Morinaga, Aono, Kuwano, & Kato, 2003). Chiefly, these studies showed that visual aspects of environments were more important than auditory aspects. However, how important the visual aspects were, was highly variable across different environments. This indicates that auditory information might dominate over visual information at some point (see also Gan, Luo, Breitung, Kang, & Zhang, 2014; Preis, Kociński, Hafke-Dys, & Wrzosek, 2015).Published versio

Aesthetic Appreciation Explicated

The present doctoral thesis outlines a new model in psychological aesthetics, named the Information-Load Model. This model asserts that aesthetic appreciation is grounded in the relationship between the amount of information of stimuli and people’s capacity to process this information. This relationship results in information load, which in turn creates emotional responses to stimuli. Aesthetic appreciation corresponds to an optimal degree of information load. Initially, the optimal degree is relatively low. As an individual learns to master information in a domain (e.g., photography), the degree of information load, which corresponds to aesthetic appreciation, increases. The present doctoral thesis is based on three empirical papers that explored what factors determine aesthetic appreciation of photographs and soundscapes. Experiment 1 of Paper I involved 34 psychology undergraduates and 564 photographs of various motifs. It resulted in a set of 189 adjectives related to the degree of aesthetic appreciation of photographs. The subsequent experiments employed attribute scales that were derived from this set of adjectives. In Experiment 2 of Paper I, 100 university students scaled 50 photographs on 141 attribute scales. Similarly, in Paper II, 100 university students scaled 50 soundscapes on 116 attribute scales. In Paper III, 10 psychology undergraduates and 5 photo professionals scaled 32 photographs on 27 attribute scales. To explore the underlying structure of the data sets, they were subjected to Multidimensional Scaling and Principal Components Analyses. Four general components, related to aesthetic appreciation, were found: Familiarity, Hedonic Tone, Expressiveness, and Uncertainty. These components result from the higher-order latent factor Information Load that underlies aesthetic appreciation

On urban soundscape mapping : A computer can predict the outcome of soundscape assessments

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether or not a computer may predict the outcome of soundscape assessments, based on acoustic data only. It may be argued that this is impossible, because a computer lack life experience. Moreover, if the computer was able to make an accurate prediction, we also wanted to know what information it needed to make this prediction. We recruited 33 students (18 female; Mage = 25.4 yrs., SDage = 3.6) out of which 30 assessed how pleasant and eventful 102 unique soundscape excerpts (30 s) from Stockholm were. Based on the Bag of Frames approach, a Support Vector Regression learning algorithm was used to identify relationships between various acoustic features of the acoustics signals and perceived affective quality. We found that the Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients provided strong predictions for both Pleasantness (R2 = 0.74) and Eventfulness (R2 = 0.83). 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