A specific smartphone application was developed to collect perceptive and acoustic data in Paris. About 3400 questionnaires were analyzed, regarding the global sound environment characterization, the perceived loudness of some emergent sources and the presence time ratio of sources that do not emerge from the background. Sound pressure level was recorded each second from the mobile phone's microphone during a 10-min period. The aim of this study is to propose indicators of urban sound quality based on linear regressions with perceptive variables. A cross validation of the quality models extracted from Paris data was carried out by conducting the same survey in Milan. The proposed sound quality general model is correlated with the real perceived sound quality (72%). Another model without visual amenity and familiarity is 58% correlated with perceived sound quality. In order to improve the sound quality indicator, a site classification was performed by Kohonen's Artificial Neural Network algorithm, and seven specific class models were developed. These specific models attribute more importance on source events and are slightly closer to the individual data than the global model. In general, the Parisian models underestimate the sound quality of Milan environments assessed by Italian people.
Abstract:Previous research has shown that tranquil areas in the city, such as urban parks, are usually perceived as positive and have a restorative effect on visitors. However, visitors could experience these spaces differently depending on the meaning they assign to the concept of tranquility. To investigate how individuals' personal views on tranquility affect their perception of the sonic environment, a soundscape study was conducted in several city parks in Antwerp, Belgium. Mobile sound measurements were combined with a questionnaire survey amongst 660 park visitors. Within the survey, the participants' viewpoint on tranquility was evaluated using their agreement with a set of previously established prototypical statements, categorizing them into one out of three main tranquility viewpoint groups: people that associate tranquility with silence, those that associate it with hearing natural sounds, or those that associate it with social relationships. Next to this, the sounds that participants had heard during their visit were noted, and their perception of the overall quality of the soundscape and the degree to which it matched their expectation were assessed. Results show that the park visitors who associate tranquility with natural sounds or to silence are more often found amongst those that report hearing mechanical sounds a lot. The same groups of visitors rate the overall quality of the sonic environment of the park more often bad to very bad. These findings suggest that park visitors pay attention more to the sounds they do not expect to hear, and that the higher their expectations about the soundscape, the more critical they become in their appraisal of the soundscape.
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