Perceived Occurrences of Soundscape Influencing Pleasantness in Urban Forests: A Comparison of Broad-Leaved and Coniferous Forests

Abstract

Perceived occurrences of soundscape reflect cognitive responses to perceived soundscapes. This research focuses on the relationship between perceived occurrences and pleasantness of soundscape in urban forests, and models these parameters. Soundscape information was gathered at 60 observation sites in urban forests, including perceived occurrences of soundscape (POS), pleasantness of perceived soundscape in urban forests (PSUF), and equivalent continuous A-weighted sound pressure level (LAeq). Twelve trained participants were exposed to the soundscape at each site for five minutes and filled out a questionnaire about POS and PSUF. The weight-ratio of perceived occurrences of soundscape (WPOS) was obtained from the POS. Pearson’s correlation coefficients and Stevens’ power law were conducted to test the applicability of the perceived occurrences of soundscape in psychophysical models. Results show that there is an interaction between the WPOS and PSUF in urban forests, and that psychophysical models are able to assess pleasantness of perceived soundscapes in urban forests. Findings show that pleasantness trends of geophony and biophony in broad-leaved forests and those in coniferous forests are opposite when the LAeq is increasing. Furthermore, by combining the WPOS, PSUF, and LAeq, the models were able to link the PSUF of geophony, biophony, anthrophony, and total soundscape in urban forests. Overall, results revealed that perceived occurrences of soundscape play a key role in linking the pleasantness of geophony, biophony, and anthrophony in urban forests.

Semantic Crowdsourcing of Soundscapes Heritage: A Mojo Model for Data-Driven Storytelling

“…Audiovisual and soundscape-related heritage initiatives also emerge, focusing on historical sound records and landscapes preserved, re-created, and reproduced as means of intangible CH expressions [25][26][27][28][29]. Furthermore, the impact of environmental sounds, noise, and soundscape components is analyzed on various aspects of modern human life, i.e., examining their associations with the residents' physical/mental health, perception, and behavior, aiming to unveil factors of sustainable growth and development and overall quality of life as well [30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37]. Social media soundscape information can serve for the prediction of health effects of noise pollution in different areas [38].…”

Perceived Loudness Sensitivity Influenced by Brightness in Urban Forests: A Comparison When Eyes Were Opened and Closed

“…Also, soundscapes play a positive health-related role in urban areas, especially natural soundscapes in urban forests, which could increase health levels of individuals [13][14][15]. Perceived soundscape occurrences contribute to enhanced connections between soundscape and other perceptions in urban areas [16,17]. These factors demonstrate that soundscapes are not only the result of energy, but also the activators of health in urban forests.…”

“…There are an increasing number of studies concerning audiovisual perception in urban areas, such as audiovisual interactions between soundscape and landscape perception [17,[20][21][22], soundscape Forests 2020, 11, 1242 2 of 14 assessment [23], and improving the quality of life in a place [24]. Perceiving various soundscape benefits pleasantness during limited tour time, suggesting that individuals may allocate more sensory attention to hearing [16,25,26]. The allocation of cognitive resources depends on enduring disposition and momentary intentions in cognitive allocation policy [27,28].…”

Estimating the Economic Value of Soundscapes in Nature-Based Tourism Destinations: A Separation Attempt of a Pairwise Comparison Method

“…Mainstream geography and tourism studies in space and landscape have been dominated by visual traditions [7,8], over multisensory perception dimensions such as touch, taste, and hearing [9,10]. As the second important sense after vision [11], hearing plays an important role in information acquisition, spatial perception, and the formation of environmental cognition [12,13]. The esthetic quality of soundscape is the key to tourists' satisfaction [14].…”