Soundscapes in the urban environment: audiovisual perception and objective control

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Abstract

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) introduced the term “soundscape”, which defined the latter as “an acoustic environment perceived or understood by a person/people in context”. It proposed methods for quantitatively assessing human emotional reactions to a sound environment. In one of the methods, such reactions were represented by coordinates on the “Pleasantness-Eventfulness" plane. The pleasantness coordinate assessed how pleasant the environment was for the subject at the time of the examination, i.e. the properties of the subject, and the eventfulness coordinate assessed how eventful the environment was, i.e. the properties of the environment. The purpose of this work was to verify the standard ISO method. Therefore, an audiovisual examination of the environment was carried out in different locations; pleasantness and eventfulness coordinates were calculated; acoustic characteristics and psychoacoustic characteristics of the environment were recorded and calculated, the latter were then compared with the characteristics of sound landscapes (or pleasantness and eventfulness coordinates). It was shown that a sound environment with physical characteristics higher than established sanitary standards may well be pleasant for a person. The obtained results confirmed the validity, informativeness and integrity of the method for assessing soundscapes, its accessibility for non-professional experts. The characteristics of soundscapes can be used for engineering design of the sound environment of urban areas.

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About the authors

L. K. Rimskaya-Korsakova

JSC “N.N. Andreev Acoustics Institute”

Author for correspondence.
Email: lkrk@mail.ru
Russian Federation, 117036, Moscow, st. Shvernika 4

N. G. Kanev

Bauman Moscow State Technical University

Email: lkrk@mail.ru
Russian Federation, 105005, Moscow, st. 2-ya Baumanskaya, 5, building 1

A. I. Komkin

Bauman Moscow State Technical University

Email: lkrk@mail.ru
Russian Federation, 105005, Moscow, st. 2-ya Baumanskaya, 5, building 1

S. А. Shulyapov

JSC “N.N. Andreev Acoustics Institute”

Email: lkrk@mail.ru
Russian Federation, 117036, Moscow, st. Shvernika 4

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Supplementary files

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2. Fig. 1. Elements of the soundscape concept.

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3. Fig. 2. Presentation of the results of the survey of sound landscapes on (a) the circumplex plane and (b) the “Pleasantness–Eventfulness” plane.

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4. Fig. 3. Locations. Locations L1-L4 were located near the entrances to the educational and residential buildings of MSTU, and L5 and L6 were in nearby common areas.

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5. Fig. 4. Medians of rank estimates obtained by a group of experts for sounds of different types in 6 locations. The ordinate is the median values ​​from 1 (I do not hear) to 5 (completely dominates). The ovals divide the locations into 2 groups.

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6. Fig. 5. Expert assessments of sound landscapes with ISOPl and ISOEv coordinates of points on the “Pleasantness-Eventfulness” plane in 6 locations. Symbols  and  correspond to individual and average assessments.

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7. Fig. 6. Values ​​of ISOPl and ISOEv coordinates of points on the “Pleasantness-Eventfulness” plane corresponding to average assessments of soundscapes in 6 locations. Ordinate – average values ​​of ISOPl and ISOEv coordinates for the group.

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8. Fig. 7. Medians of rank assessments of the environment as a whole and its loudness in 6 locations. The ordinate is rank assessments from 1 (very bad / not at all) to 5 (very good / very loud).

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9. Fig. 8. Variability of physical and subjective loudness assessments, as well as the annoyance metric PAA of the sound environment in 6 locations. The ordinate is the variability of sound pressure levels ΔL in dBA, loudness ΔN in sones, and the annoyance metric ΔPAA in units.

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