This paper investigates the way in which people categorize environmental sounds in their everyday lives. Previous research has shown that isolated environmental sounds are categorized on the basis of high-level semantic features when the sounds can be attributed to specific sound sources. However, in the presence of numerous sound sources, as occur in most real-world situations, the process of source identification is often hindered. In the present study, a free categorization task with open-ended verbal descriptions was used to investigate auditory categories for environmental sounds in complex real-world sonic environments. Two main categories emerged from the free-sort, reflecting the absence or presence of human activity in relation to hedonic judgments. At a subordinate level, subcategories were mediated by the participant's reported interactions with the environment through socialized activities. The spontaneous verbal descriptors collected were successful in discriminating categories. These findings indicate that complex environmental sounds are processed and categorized as meaningful events providing relevant information about the environment. The relevance of situational factors in categorization and the notion of auditory category in its relation to linguistic labeling are then discussed.

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