Global and Continuous Pleasantness Estimation of the Soundscape Perceived during Walking Trips through Urban Environments

Abstract

This paper investigates how the overall pleasantness of the sound environment of an urban walking trip can be estimated through acoustical measurements along the path. For this purpose, two laboratory experiments were carried out, during which controlled and natural 3-min audio and audiovisual sequences were presented. Participants were asked to continuously assess the pleasantness of the sound environment along the sequence, and globally at its end. The results reveal that the global sound pleasantness is principally explained by the average of the instantaneous sound pleasantness values. Accounting for recency or trend effects improved the estimates of the global sound pleasantness over controlled sound sequences, but their contribution is not significant for the second group of stimuli, which are based on natural audio sequences and include visual information. In addition, models for global and continuous pleasantness, as a function of the instantaneous sound pressure level L eq,1s , are proposed. The instantaneous sound pleasantness is found to be mainly impacted by the average sound level over the past 6 s. A logarithmic fading mechanism, extracted from psychological literature, is also proposed for this modelling, and slightly improves the estimations. Finally, the globally perceived sound pleasantness can be accurately estimated from the sound pressure level of the sound sequences, explaining about 60% of the variance in the global sound pleasantness ratings.

Auditory sensory saliency as a better predictor of change than sound amplitude in pleasantness assessment of reproduced urban soundscapes

“…In this paper we evaluated the hypothesis that auditory saliency triggers change in pleasantness assessment of the soundscape. Recordings of walking trips through urban environments were assessed in a previous audiovisual experiment by their pleasantness [16]. In this study, the continuous rating obtained from this experiment was used as a basis for determining the probability of change in pleasantness rating over time.…”

“…The time shift and Granger lag could also be related to the previous analysis of the reaction and integration time when evaluating the connection between the continuous level and evaluated pleasantness [16]. However, in the previous study, the assessed time constants were on a larger scale up to several seconds while here only the values around one second were investigated.…”

“…The walks were recorded in both directions to capture the transition between the environments. For the complete explanation of the experiment we refer to [16].…”

“…The experimental data came from the same study as the audiovisual experiment [16]. The group of participants in the audio-only experiment was, however, different.…”

“…This paper explores the hypothesis that sensory salient events trigger changes in the appraisal of the sonic environment. Two laboratory experiments, an audiovisual and an audio-only experiment, in which people continuously rated the pleasantness of the sonic environment recorded during a city walk [16], are used for verifying this hypothesis. More specifically, this paper evaluates if the sensory saliency, computed using the proposed model, increases the probability that the participants in the experiments will change their pleasantness rating of the sonic environment.…”