A laboratory study of the sound-odour interaction in urban environments

Abstract

：This study investigated the interaction of sound and odour in urban environments. Sound and odour perception as well as overall perception were evaluated by 168 participants through a laboratory experiment, where different sounds and odours were selected, each with three levels. The results showed that, in the evaluation of sound, odour had little effect on evaluations of birdsong and low-volume sound, whereas for the rest of the conditions, higher odour concentration resulted in a more positive evaluation. The odour evaluation showed that, with increase of volume, odour evaluation became more negative, and for such results traffic and conversation sounds had the greatest effects. For the overall evaluation, in the presence of birdsong and low-volume sound, the overall evaluation was unaffected by odour; for other combinations of sound and odour, with increased concentration, the overall evaluation improved. Moreover, the similarities and differences in the evaluations of sound and odour showed an analogous trend of sensory comfort and preference due to their high correlation coefficient-a positive sensory stimulus can improve the evaluation of other senses, while a negative one has the opposite effect. There is a masking effect between audition and olfaction that is reflected in the finding that when one stimulus is stronger, the other has weaker perceptual intensity; however, sensory familiarity does not change. Furthermore, the relationship between sensory evaluation and overall evaluation showed that for overall comfort, the effect of sound was stronger than odour, while for congruency, the effects of sound and odour were almost equal.

Impact of environment color on individual responses in public spaces of shopping malls

“…The experimental process and operational essentials were introduced to the participants. Each audio‐visual scene was played for 30 seconds . The main part of the experiment was controlled to last approximately 20 minutes, to avoid errors due to fatigue.…”

The Influence of Audio-Visual Interactions on Psychological Responses of Young People in Urban Green Areas: A Case Study in Two Parks in China

“…A total of 36 graduate students (male: 16; female: 20) with self-reported normal vision and hearing [34,35] asserted that they can easily distinguish a certain sound in a complex sound environment, sense the strength of the sound, and recognize different colors from the School of Architecture, Harbin Institute of Technology, volunteered to join the AV-walk survey. The age of the participants ranged from 22–33 years old [36].…”

Senses of place: architectural design for the multisensory mind

“…Recently, Ba and Kang ( 2019 ) documented crossmodal interactions between ambient sound and smell in a laboratory study that was designed to capture the sensory cues that might be encountered in a typical urban environment. These researchers decided to pair the sounds of birds, conversation, and traffic, with the smells of flowers (lilac, osmanthus), coffee, or bread, at one of three levels (low, medium, or high) in each modality.…”

“…Hence, no matter whether one wants to create a tranquil space (Pheasant, Horoshenkov, Watts, & Barret, 2008 ) or one that arouses (Mattila & Wirtz, 2001 ), the senses interact as they do in various other configurations and situations (e.g., Jahncke, Eriksson, & Naula, 2015 ; Jiang, Masullo, & Maffei, 2016 ). There are, in fact, numerous examples where the senses have been shown to interact in the experience and rating of urban environments (e.g., Ba & Kang, 2019 ; Van Renterghem & Botteldooren, 2016 ).…”