Comparison of Response Scales as Measures of Indoor Environmental Perception in Combined Thermal and Acoustic Conditions

Abstract

Response scales are widely used to assess the personal experience of sensation and perception in built environments, and have a great impact on the quality of the responses. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of response scales on human sensation and perception in moderate indoor environments. Four different response scales were compared under three room temperatures (19.0 °C, 24.5 °C, and 30.0 °C) and five acoustic stimuli (ambient noise, 42 and 61 dBA × water sounds and traffic noise): a bipolar seven-point scale according to ISO 10551:1995, a unipolar 11-point scale according to ISO/TS 15666:2003, these two scales combined for each sensory comfort assessment, and a bipolar visual analogue scale. The degree of relative differentiation based on indoor physical factors made no significant difference across the four response scales. Therefore, the effects of physical factors on human response could be assessed by using any of the four scales tested in this study, with a statistical significance at P < 0.05 in moderate environments. The choice of response scale would depend not only on the type of physical stimulus but also on the question of sensation or perception. The reliability of each response scale was different according to the subjective attributes. The bipolar visual analogue scale was subjectively preferred by the respondents.

Usability of Visual Analogue Scales in Assessing Human Perception of Sound with University Students Using a Web-Based Tablet Interface

“…Two-thirds of the participants preferred bipolar VASs, which is consistent with previous studies [49,50]. None of the respondents selected the unipolar 11-point scale, which was the only numerical scale in the present study.…”

“…In general, the most reliable response scale was the bipolar VAS from negative to positive, followed by that from positive to negative, as listed in Table 5. The unipolar scales, including numerical and analogue scales, did not demonstrate high reliability compared with the bipolar scales, which is consistent with previous studies [49,50]. Yang and Jeon [49] reported that the bipolar visual analogue scale was more reliable than the unipolar 11-point numerical scale for auditory perception.…”

“…In previous studies [49,50] where water sound and traffic noise at 42 and 61 dBA were used, respectively, no statistical difference was exhibited in response scale sensitivity. In this study, music sounds were presented to the participants instead of water sounds.…”

“…The respondents preferred the bipolar VAS. Yang et al [50] expanded the response scale study to assess the combined environmental perception. They compared four different response scales based on ISO/TS 15666:2021 [4] and ISO 10551:2019 [48].…”

“…Yang and Jeon [49] reported that the bipolar visual analogue scale was more reliable than the unipolar 11-point numerical scale for auditory perception. Furthermore, Yang et al [50] discovered that the bipolar VAS appeared reliable over repeated measures for all subjective attributes, including auditory perception.…”