A cognitive framework for the categorisation of auditory objects in urban soundscapes

Categorisation is a fundamental cognitive process that plays a central role in everyday behaviour and action. Whereas previous studies have investigated the categorisation of isolated everyday sounds, this paper presents an experiment to investigate the cognitive categorisation of everyday sounds within their original context. A group of eighteen expert and non-expert listeners took part in a free sorting task using 110 sounds identified within ambisonic reproductions of urban soundscapes. The participants were asked to sort the objects into groups of sounds that served a similar purpose in the overall perception of the soundscape. Following this, the participants were asked to provide descriptive labels for the groups they had formed. The results were analysed using hierarchical agglomerative clustering and non-metric multidimensional scaling (MDS) to explore both the structure and dimensionality of the data. The resulting hierarchical clustering of objects show three top level categories relating to transient sounds, continuous sounds, and speech and vocalisations. Sub-categories were identified in each of the top level categories which included harmonic and non-harmonic continuous sounds, clear speech, unintelligible speech, vocalisations, transient sounds that indicate actions, and non-salient transient sounds. The first two dimensions revealed by the MDS analysis relate to temporal extent and intelligibility respectively. Interpretation of the third dimension is less clear, but may be related to harmonic content

On the study of the effects of sea views, greenery views and personal characteristics on noise annoyance perception at homes

Noise annoyance has caused significant adverse impacts on human beings and numerous efforts have been spent on mitigating annoyance problems. Natural greenery has been shown to be able to moderate annoyance problems at home but this conclusion was drawn without properly controlling the potential confounding factors. Furthermore, few have explored the moderation effect of a sea view. Accordingly, this study formulated a multivariate model to examine the impacts of natural views as well as personal characteristics on annoyance perception. A housing estate was selected in Hong Kong as the survey site for which some of the residents were exposed to greenery views, sea views, or both from their homes. Eight hundred and sixty-one responses were collected via questionnaire surveys and analyzed using an ordered logit model. The results suggest that both a greenery view and a sea view can moderate annoyance responses. Several individual’s personal characteristics are found to affect individuals’ annoyance perception. The duration of time spent daily at home is shown to have an influence on the moderation impact exerted by a greenery view, while the age of an individual is shown to have an influence on noise moderation effect exerted by a sea view.Department of Building Services Engineerin

The impact of the sonification of a vocal server on its usability and its user-friendliness

Presented at the 8th International Conference on Auditory Display (ICAD), Kyoto, Japan, July 2-5, 2002.This paper deals with the evaluation of the impact of the addition of eight sounds in a vocal server on its usability and user-friendliness. Thirty-two subjects tested two versions of a voicemail service through eight scenarios, with and without sounds. Three types of data were collected: behavioral data, declarative data (answers to questionnaires), and galvanic skin responses. The main results show a learning effect from one version to another that is not dependent on the versions tested. No effect of the sonification on the usability and on the perceived user-friendliness of this voicemail server was found

La négociation d'un lieu d'autonomie chez des personnes à la rue en France et au Mexique.: Eléments pour une anthropopsychologie réflexive des mondes contemporains de la misère urbaine

International audienceLa problématique des capacités d'autonomie cognitive des personnes en situation de misère est située ici dans le cadre général d'une anthropologie des mondes contemporains. Ayant posé quelques repères conceptuels liés à la surmodernité urbaine et aux supports sociaux et culturels indispensables au développement d'un penser et d'un agir sur et par soi-même, on décrit les conditions de précarité des deux populations rencontrées: SDF en France, indigènes à Mexico. On propose ensuite en trois points - l'itinérance, la négociation du lieu propre, le souci de l'autre - une analyse interprétative transversale visant à mieux éclairer ces populations différentes en les pensant ensemble

Dire et représenter la différence et le mélange des hommes: (notes pour une histoire psychosociale des politiques du divers)

On revient sur l'histoire de la nomination et de la représentation des différences entre les peuples. Les figures de l'autre en animal, barbare, sauvage, primitif, sont resituées dans les contextes historiques de domination politique où elles furent mises en œuvre - hellénisation et romanisation, conquête des Amériques, empires coloniaux des Etats-Nations. Les logiques structurant les systèmes de représentation - christianisation, condamnation du mélange, théorie des races, hantise des métissages - sont analysées. On s'interroge enfin sur la manière dont cette histoire occultée pèse sur les représentations actuelles de populations stigmatisées

La représentation sociale de la culture de l'Autre: Figures opposées de l'Indien Primitif et du Maghrebin Indépendant chez des élèves de 1ère année d'IUT en situation de problème absurde

Dans le cadre d'une intervention pédagogique, 47 élèves en 1ère année d'IUT sont soumis à un problème absurde de sciences humaines comparant un groupe de Maghrebins et un groupe de Zapotèques. Après avoir présenté les effets quantitatifs en termes de contrat de communication didactique, on propose une analyse qualitative intertextuelle des copies, mettant à jour la production collective d'une double représentation sociale opposant sous forme argumentative l'Indien Primitif au Maghrebin Indépendant. Posant les questions de l'ontologie des représentations sociales et des usages tactiques qu'en font les sujets, la discussion interprétative situe les résultats dans le cadre d'une approche psychosociale ancrée dans la sémiotique et l'anthropologie contemporaine, en pointant les enjeux pédagogiques de la représentation de l'Autre dans nos sociétés

Fragments éducatifs du bas de l'immeuble: Recherche qualitative sur les lieux et pratiques de la prévention spécialisée dans une cité HLM classée ZUS

Mémoire de Recherche en Travail Socialprésenté au Diplôme d'Etat d'Educateur SpécialiséAcadémie d'Aix-Marseille (juin 2006)Institut Méditerranéen de Formation et de Recherche en Travail SocialIMF - MarseilleCe travail s'interroge sur les lieux et les pratiques de la prévention spécialisée. Il prend appui sur une expérience éducative de 7 mois dans un des secteurs de la Cité Berthe, Zone Urbaine Sensible n°561, au nord de La Seyne-sur-Mer.La partie I est descriptive et documentaire : elle pose le cadre juridique et l'histoire de la prévention spécialisée, les caractéristiques des ZUS et les missions de prévention exercées à Berthe par l'APEA.La partie II définit la problématique et la méthode de recherche adoptée.Enfin, la partie III expose les observations et analyses de terrain concernant la vie quotidienne et le travail éducatif de prévention sur le quartier Berthe

Modelling the emotional quality of speech in a telecommunication context

Presented at the 8th International Conference on Auditory Display (ICAD), Kyoto, Japan, July 2-5, 2002.This paper presents a study of the perception, the analysis, and the modelling of the emotional quality of speech. Speech emotional quality is defined as the qualities of speech samples in terms of the emotional content that describe the listeners' global impressions as elicited by their audition. For this study, twenty professional female speakers recorded a welcome prompt of a vocal server in five elocution styles. The sound corpus was submitted to psychoacoustic tests and to signal analysis. From the psychoacoustic tests, twenty subjective criteria could be extracted that characterize the perceived emotional quality. These criteria can be used to draw perceptive portraits of the speech samples. Linear models connecting the perceptive portraits to physical data derived from signal analysis were developed

Loudness evaluation of urban soundscapes by a cross-modal matching method

cote interne IRCAM: Susini99b/National audienceIn a previous study, loudness of a time-varying pure tone was evaluated using a cross-modal matching method. In this procedure, the loudness was matched to an equivalent muscular force. Subjects had to judge the instantaneous and global loudness using a proprioceptive input device with force feedback. Using this technique subjects could respond easly, rapidly, continuously, and with feedback concerning their evaluation. The present study examines the relation between instantaneous and global loudness of sixteen urban soundscapes lasting about 20 s using the same method. First, the procedure is individually calibrated with 1-s soundscapes presented at different sound pressure levels. The data obtained for each subject fit well with a linear relation on log-log scale between the sound pressure level in dB and the associated force in log Newtons. Then, the global judgments are performed under two experimental conditions: one with instantaneous loudness evaluation during stimulus presentation and one without. Good correlation was found between these two judgments. The global judgment and the average over the instantaneous matching contour are nearly identical. In addition, a fluction factor (FI) calculated on the loudness judgment contour reflects the degree of movement produced by the subject as well as the presence of discriminable sources