Non-auditory factors affecting urban soundscape evaluation

Jin Yong Jeon, Pyoung Jik Lee,a) and Joo Young Hong
Department of Architectural Engineering, Hanyang University, Seoul 133-791, Korea

Densil Cabrera
Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning, University of Sydney, New South Wales 2006, Australia

(Received 13 January 2011; revised 16 August 2011; accepted 28 September 2011) The aim of this study is to characterize urban spaces, which combine landscape, acoustics, and lighting, and to investigate peoples perceptions of urban soundscapes through quantitative and qualitative analyses. A general questionnaire survey and soundwalk were performed to investigate soundscape perception in urban spaces. Non-auditory factors (visual image, day lighting, and olfactory perceptions), as well as acoustic comfort, were selected as the main contexts that affect soundscape perception, and context preferences and overall impressions were evaluated using an 11-point numerical scale. For qualitative analysis, a semantic differential test was performed in the form of a social survey, and subjects were also asked to describe their impressions during a soundwalk. The results showed that urban soundscapes can be characterized by soundmarks, and soundscape perceptions are dominated by acoustic comfort, visual images, and day lighting, whereas reverberance in urban spaces does not yield consistent preference judgments. It is posited that the subjective evaluation of reverberance can be replaced by physical measurements. The categories extracted from the qualitative analysis revealed that spatial impressions such as openness and density emerged as some of the contexts of soundscape perception. C 2011 Acoustical Society of America. [DOI: 10.1121/1.3652902] V PACS number(s): 43.50.Rq, 43.50.Qp, 43.66.Lj [BSF] Pages: 37613770

I. INTRODUCTION

Environmental noise, including sounds from trafc, industry, construction, and public works, is often a main environmental cause of community distress in terms of the number of complaints received. However, reducing the sound level is not always feasible and cost-effective, and more importantly it neither necessarily satises people nor improves their quality of life. Therefore, recent studies have adopted a soundscape methodology for the integrated consideration of the urban living environment.13 As the importance of the soundscape approach has increased, ISO TC43 SC1 WG54 has aimed to standardize the soundscape evaluation procedure. A soundscape is described as an environment of sound (or sonic environment) with emphasis on the way it is perceived and understood by an individual or by a society in the ISO draft.4 Soundscapes are related to human beings and society, as well as to sonic and acoustic environments; thus, a soundscape is perceived within a global context that includes auditory information in addition to that from other sensory modalities.5 Therefore, many diverse factors affect soundscape perception. As the acoustic environment is one of the most important components of the overall rating in an urban soundscape,6 several previous studies have focused on the evaluation of the acoustic environment in terms of acoustic comfort and noise annoyance.7,8 Types and characteristics of sound sources have also been investigated in relation to the
a)

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Electronic mail: pyoungjik@daum.net

acoustic environment.911 Further, the effect of visual image on soundscape perception has been investigated5,12 based on the complex interactions and reinforcements between vision and audition.1315 A recent previous study also proposed pertinent contexts in soundscape assessment, such as place/location, physical environment (wind, temperature, and lighting), personal activity, and social environment.16 Moreover, several studies17,18 applied a social psychological approach to explain noise annoyance within the social context, and a sound management procedure was considered as one of the social non-acoustical variables. Meanings attributed to soundscape were also investigated considering both individual perceptual categories and sociological representations.19 The framework of soundscape perception was also discussed in a sub-group of WG54, the box task group. The box task group proposed a basic box diagram that was developed to describe the soundscape concept. In the initial output of the box task group, it was assumed that context and physical soundscape have dominant and independent effects on soundscape perception. Context was dened as the setting in which a sound of any type is heard and perceived, and it was considered to be comprised of sound source, physical conditions such as landscape and lighting, and societal and individual characteristics. Physical soundscape indicated the physical exposure at a point or area. After further discussions, the basic box diagram was slightly revised, and it was reported in Internoise 2010.20 This model consists of sound sources, the acoustic environment, context, perception of the soundscape, and human outcomes. It was emphasized that context plays an important role in soundscape perception, and various factors including visual image, landscape, motivation, and experience were listed as contexts.
C 2011 Acoustical Society of America V

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 130 (6), December 2011

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The soundscape was evaluated through on-site surveys because of the difculties in simulating complex sound elds and the interactions between sound and other sensory modalities in a laboratory test.21 Some studies have included analyses in various sites, and others have focused on case studies of specic sites.3,8,11 A number of researchers have also employed the soundwalk methodology to evaluate a soundscape. A soundwalk is a practice for identifying a soundscape and its components; it was devised by Schafer during the late 1960s and early 1970s.22 Later, the soundwalk methodology was used to engage subjects in the practices of listening to and describing a city.23 Recently, many researchers have introduced soundwalk methodology into soundscape studies and have recommended the evaluation procedure and methods.1,2428 Audio-visual recordings were conducted as part of these soundwalks, which involved both experts and non-experts in urban design and acoustics as participants. The present study aims to investigate factors that inuence soundscape perception in urban spaces. A social survey was carried out to assess urban soundscapes using a questionnaire that included the contexts of day lighting, reverberance, and olfactory sensations as well as acoustic comfort and visual image. Classication of urban soundscapes was performed based on the assessment of contexts, and the dominant factors affecting soundscape perception were then derived according to the classied groups. A soundwalk was also conducted to conrm the ndings of the social survey.
II. SOCIAL SURVEY A. Site selection

B. Procedure

Social surveys were performed in Seoul in the late autumn of 2009 in order to evaluate the perception of the urban soundscape based on its context. Ten sites were chosen based on the fact that each site had a different urban environment with various combinations of buildings, road trafc, water features, and trees. Table I shows the main functions and sound sources for each site. Sites 1 and 2 were shopping streets with heavy trafc and many high-rise buildings close to the road. Sites 3 and 4 (located in downtown Seoul) were urban squares with fountains. Sites 58 were exposed to limited road trafc. Site 7 included pedestrian pathways on either side of a city stream, Cheongyecheon. Sites 9 and 10 were city parks, with Site 9 being the largest city park in Seoul.

The urban soundscape was evaluated using a questionnaire to assess the acoustic environment and landscape, along with general questions about the participants themselves. The questions were arranged in four basic sections. The rst section sought to obtain the overall impression and preference of sound source and physical conditions of the urban soundscape based on the initial basic box diagram discussed in ISO WG54. Acoustic comfort was chosen as the evaluation variable of the sound eld, and visual image, daylight, fragrances and odors, and reverberance were also selected for the assessment of physical conditions. Subjects were asked to respond to the following question using an 11-point numerical scale (with 0 signifying not at all and 10 signifying extremely): What number, from 0 to 10, best represents your preference for _? In the second section, subjects were asked to describe soundmarks of the site. In this survey, a soundmark was dened as a sound, which is unique or possess qualities that make it specially regarded or noticed by the community,22 and the subjects were asked to freely describe the sound sources in their own words. In the third section, soundscape perception was evaluated using 12 pairs of adjectives (in Korean) describing the qualities of the soundscape with a seven-point bipolar rating scale. The 12 adjective pairs were selected based on a review of previous studies10,25,2934 on semantic differential descriptors of sound environments, which reported that the dominant factors affecting soundscape perception were strength, preference or pleasantness, activity, temporal aspects, and spatial aspects. Therefore, the selected words representing those factors were: (un)pleasant, (un)comfortable, (not)disturbing, quiet-noisy, calm-loud, (un)natural, distinct-usual, (un)steady, (not)pulsating, nearbyfar, wide-narrow, and dry-reverberant. The last section dealt with demographic data such as age and gender, housing type, frequency of visits, and noise sensitivity, all of which were evaluated using an 11-point numerical scale. A total of 300 subjects (145 males and 155 females) participated in this study; 30 subjects with almost equal numbers of males and females were selected randomly to assess each of the ten sites. The age distributions of the subjects ranged from 17 to 68 (the mean and standard deviation age of the subjects was 34.5 and 9.1, respectively), but the portion of participants aged 3040 was the greatest at 40%. All of the surveys were conducted in the afternoon (13:0017:00) in

TABLE I. Sites with sound sources and measured sound pressure levels at each site (Leq, dBA). Site 1 2 3 4 5
a

Main function Commercial, ofce Commercial, ofce Square, ofce Square, ofce, cultural Commercial

Sound sources Trafc, footsteps, music from buildings, surrounding speech Trafc, footsteps, construction, music from buildings, surrounding speech Trafc, water (fountain), construction, children Trafc, water (fountain), surrounding speech Trafc, footsteps, music from buildings

SPLa 72.1 (3.1) 68.7 (2.8) 68.9 (3.0) 75.5 (4.2) 63.3 (1.8)

Site 6 7 8 9 10

Main function Ofce, cultural (historic building) Relaxation, ofce Commercial, ofce Relaxation Relaxation, recreation

Sound sources Trafc, footsteps, speech Trafc, footsteps, speech, water (stream) Trafc, footsteps, water (stream), music from buildings Wind, birds, children, Trafc Wind, birds, speech, trafc

SPLa 66.9 (2.5) 65.2 (2.0) 69.0 (2.0) 52.2 (1.2) 61.0 (2.2)

Numbers in parentheses represent standard deviation of sound levels. J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 130, No. 6, December 2011 Jeon et al.: Non-auditory factors of urban soundscapes

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order to reduce the effects of variable environmental conditions such as temperature and day lighting based on the assumption that outdoor activities are most frequent during that time. The survey held in October, 2009 over three days with clear weather. During the survey, the mean humidity and maximum temperature varied from 53% to 58% and from 20.6 to 21.7  C, respectively. The surveys were performed by using a questionnaire listed in the Appendix. A 3-min LAeq (equivalent continuous sound level) was measured as each subject silently responded to the questionnaire. The measured sound levels at each site are shown in Table I, including the mean and standard deviation (STD). The sound levels ranged from 52.2 dBA to 75.5 dBA. Sites 1 and 4 (with heavy road trafc) showed much higher levels than did the other sites, whereas Site 9 was the quietest with a mean LAeq of 52.2 dBA. Noise levels at all sites were stable within less than 5 dB of the STD.
C. Evaluation of contexts 1. Quantitative analysis

of reverberance (even though it was explained before the survey). Correlation coefcients between overall impressions and the contextual evaluation results were calculated. Daylight and fragrances and odors were signicantly correlated with overall impression (r 0.68 and r 0.65; p < 0.05), whereas acoustic comfort, visual image, and reverberance were not (r 0.34, r 0.52, and r 0.61; p > 0.05).
2. Classifications of urban soundscapes

Overall impressions and acoustic comfort for ten sites are shown in Fig. 1. Result of analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that the effect of site on the overall impression was statistically signicant [F(9, 290) 17.43, p < 0.01]. Overall impressions of sites 4, 7, and 9 received mean ratings higher than 7.0, whereas site 8 received the lowest rating of 4.9. For acoustic comfort, site 9 also yielded the highest rating of 6.4, and site 2 was evaluated as the urban soundscape with the lowest acoustic comfort of 3.9. Sound pressure levels measured at each site were strongly correlated with acoustic comfort (r 0.85, p < 0.01), whereas the correlation between sound pressure level and overall impression was not statistically signicant (r 0.36, p 0.31). The overall impression of site 4 was the highest even though its sound level was the highest; this indicates that the perception of an urban soundscape is not predominantly dependent on sound pressure level and is affected by other elements of the context. Site 9 (city park) was evaluated as the best urban space with regard to all tested contexts, whereas site 2 (with heavy road trafc and high-rise buildings) was chosen as the worst urban space. The standard deviation of reverberance was slightly greater than the STDs of the other measures perhaps because non-expert participants did not fully understand the meaning

Previous studies35,36 attempted to categorize environmental sounds based on the similarity and dissimilarity analysis. But, in this study, the cluster analysis method was adopted for classication of urban soundscapes because data can be divided into groups (clusters) that are meaningful, useful, or both. There have also been many application of cluster analysis to classication of sound sources and soundscapes.3739 In the present study, hierarchical cluster analysis was performed based on average linkage algorithm and Euclidean distances between 10 sites for the evaluation results of the contexts, and the cluster analysis dendrogram is shown in Fig. 2. The result is represented by a tree in which the leaves correspond to the ten urban soundscapes. Based on the results, three groups (AC) were created. Group A consisted of various types of urban spaces, including urban squares (sites 3 and 4), streets with light trafc (sites 5 and 6), a city stream (site 7), and a city park (site 10). The perceptions of the urban spaces included in group A were not signicantly different in terms of contexts. Group B contained two store-lled streets with heavy trafc (sites 1 and 2) and a pedestrian road with heavy trafc (site 8). Site 8 was categorized into group B because sound from the small stream was rarely heard; hence, road trafc noise was likely to be dominant as it was at sites 1 and 2. Site 9 (green space) was categorized into group C and was distinguished from the other urban soundscapes as receiving the highest subjective responses with regard to all of the contexts. The means and standard deviations of the subjective evaluation results for groups AC are listed in Table II.

FIG. 1. Overall impressions and acoustic comfort for ten sites. J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 130, No. 6, December 2011

FIG. 2. Classication of urban soundscapes, presented as a tree diagram (dendrogram) from a cluster analysis (the rectangles indicate groups AC). Jeon et al.: Non-auditory factors of urban soundscapes 3763

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TABLE II. Mean subjective ratings for the contexts in groups AC.a Overall Acoustic Visual Fragrances Group impression comfort image Daylight and odors Reverberance A B C
a

TABLE IV. Regression coefcients for contexts according to multiple regression analyses of overall impression in urban soundscapes.a Independent variables in the regression equation Intercept (standardized) 2.61 3.48** 3.07**
**

6.5 (1.6) 5.7 (1.6) 7.2 (1.5)

5.1 (1.7) 6.3 (1.9) 6.2 (1.7) 4.4 (2.0) 5.1 (2.0) 5.0 (1.8) 6.4 (2.0) 7.6 (1.3) 7.7 (1.5)

5.2 (2.0) 3.4 (1.9) 6.8 (1.8)

5.0 (2.1) 4.1 (2.3) 6.7 (1.6)

Group A B C
a*

Acoustic comfort 0.16 0.45**

**

Visual image 0.50

*

Daylight 0.54**

r 0.59** 0.45** 0.54**

The numbers in parentheses are standard deviations.

Group C showed outstanding results, with the highest subjective ratings in every context, followed by those of group A and group B. Hence, group C (a large city park) can be regarded as a natural landmark, designed by city planners to function similarly to Central Park in New York and Hyde Park in London. Group A can also be considered a designed soundscape because it contains natural features as well as articial features. In contrast, soundscape design is needed to improve group Bs perception. Correlation coefcients between the overall impressions and the evaluation results of the contexts for groups AC are listed in Table III. In the case of group A, acoustic comfort, daylight, and visual image were highly correlated with overall impression. Acoustic comfort and daylight were also highly correlated with overall impression in the case of group B, but the overall impression for group C was correlated only with daylight. In order to calculate the effects of the contexts on overall impression, multiple regression analysis was conducted using a linear combination of contexts. This analysis determined that the best combination of variables with respect to the correlation between the overall impression and contexts differed in the different groups. Regression analysis results are listed in Table IV, and all relationships were statistically signicant. In the case of group A, visual image and acoustic comfort were included in the regression model, and the standardized regression coefcient of visual image was greater than that for acoustic comfort. This indicates that the contribution of visual image to overall impression was dominant. The regression model of group B contained only acoustic comfort, and that for group C contained only daylight. A soundmark (derived from landmark) refers to a community sound that is unique or that possesses qualities which make it specially regarded or noticed by people in that community.22 Sound sources chosen as soundmarks were collected and classied into natural and articial sounds, as shown in Fig. 3. Natural sounds include leaves rustling, wind, birds, and water features, while articial sounds are mainly produced by trafc, pedestrians, and machines. Natural
TABLE III. Correlation coefcients between overall impression and contexts for groups AC.a Acoustic comfort 0.37 0.44** 0.35
**

p < 0.05, **p < 0.01.

sounds presented in Fig. 3 correspond to sounds with positive judgments among sounds sources obtained from descriptions of the ideal urban soundscape in the previous sutdy.40 Sounds from bells and electric vehicles were not identied in this study because these are seldom heard in Seoul. Sound sources selected as soundmarks differed signicantly in groups AC. In the case of group A, the percentages of natural and articial sounds were almost the same. In contrast, groups B and C were dominated by articial sounds and natural sounds, respectively, as group B had few natural features, whereas group C (a city park) had many natural features. These results indicate that the characteristics of classied groups can also be explained in terms of soundmarks.
3. Qualitative analysis

Figure 4 shows the results of the semantic differential test on the urban soundscape, with the 12 adjective scales grouped into two components through factor analysis. Component 1 includes nine adjectives: uncomfortable, noisy, loud, disturbing, unpleasant, articial, unusual, reverberant, and pulsating. Only three of the adjectives (steady, nearby, and wide) are categorized into component 2. Components 1 and 2 explained 64% and 15% of the total variance, respectively. Component 1 is related to the comfort, loudness, and temporal variation, and component 2 mainly represents spatial sensations. The differences between groups with regard to the aspects of component 1 were much greater than those for component 2. This shows that component 1 better explained the differences in the urban soundscapes than did component 2. However, spatial sensations should also be considered for the assessment of an urban soundscape.
III. SOUNDWALK

Group A B C
a*

Visual image 0.55 0.21* 0.32

**

Daylight 0.36 0.31** 0.54**

**

Fragrances and odors 0.18 0.16 0.003

*

Reverberance 0.22** 0.14 0.36

p < 0.05, **p < 0.01. J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 130, No. 6, December 2011

In Sec. II, the effect of non-auditory factors on the perception of urban soundscapes was evaluated, and urban soundscapes were classied into three groups. However, it was not clear whether other urban soundcapes also can be classied into same groups. Therefore, a verication process was undertaken to conrm the results obtained from Sec. II. The approach to urban soundscape evaluation in this stage was different from that conducted in Sec. II in terms of: (1) the context of urban soundscape, (2) the evaluation method, and (3) the subjects. The soundwalk methodology was adopted for evaluation of urban soundscape, the test was conducted in Sydney (Australia), and 11 acousticians participated.
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FIG. 3. Soundmarks of the sites: (a) Group A, (b) group B, and (c) group C. White and grey bars indicate the natural and articial sounds, respectively.

A. Site selection

Twelve sites in Sydney were selected by considering various elements that contribute to the urban environment, such as buildings, roads, squares, and water features. Figure 5 shows the two chosen soundwalk routes, A and B. Sites 1, 6, and 12 were urban parks, and sites 2 and 912 were tourist attractions near the waterfront. Sites 35 and 8 were commercial and ofce districts that were exposed to heavy road trafc.
B. Procedure

The soundwalk was performed in Sydney in August 2010 during the International Congress on Acoustics (ICA). The soundwalk was carried out twice along two routes. Route A began at site 1 and ended at site 6, whereas route B passed from site 7 to site 12. Eleven participants (six males and two females), comprising three domestic and eight foreign acoustics experts, evaluated the urban soundscapes

through questionnaires during the 1 h walks. The soundwalks were conducted in silence, and the participants were asked to concentrate on what they heard and observed about the urban environment. The questionnaire used in the soundwalk was almost the same as that used in the social survey, except for the qualitative analysis. In the soundwalk, participants were asked to describe their impressions and personal opinions instead of performing a semantic differential test. During the soundwalk, audio-visual recording was conducted using a eld recorder (FR-2, Fostex, Medford, OR) with a binaural microphone (Type 4101, B&K, Denmark) and a video camera (HDV V-1, Sony, Japan).
C. Evaluation of contexts 1. Quantitative analysis

FIG. 4. Semantic proles of the urban soundscapes: Group A (), group B ( ), and group C (--). J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 130, No. 6, December 2011

Correlation coefcients between overall impressions and contexts are listed in Table V. The results from 12 sites show that visual image and acoustic comfort were highly correlated with the overall impression of a soundscape, while the correlation between overall impression and reverberance was relatively weak. Standard deviations of preference scores at each site were more than 2.0 except for site 8. In particular, standard deviation of site 12 was 3.5. This is because preferences for reverberance in outdoor spaces were affected by various factors such as type of sound source, background noise level, and sound masking as well as reverberation time. From this it was determined that reverberation preference is not suitable as an indicator of an urban soundscape in this study. However, this result is different from the nding of the previous study41 reporting that reverberance is one of key perceptual attributes of urban spaces in relation to the size of space. In this study, reverberation time at each site was not measured during survey and soundwalk, thus it is necessary to investigate the relationship between measured reverberation time and preference for reverberance in the future.
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FIG. 5. Soundwalk routes and evaluation sites in Sydney (source: Google Maps).

Classication of the 12 sites was also performed through cluster analysis, in the same manner as was used in Sec. II, and the results demonstrated that the 12 sites could be classied into two groups on the basis of the evaluation results of the contexts. Group 1 contained seven sites (1, 2, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, and 12), whereas group 2 contained ve sites (3, 4, 5, 7, and 8). Most of the sites in group 1 were located in and around the harbor; the others were urban parks with water features and green spaces. In contrast, all of the sites in group 2 were close to heavy trafc and surrounded by tall buildings. The results of regression analysis for the prediction of overall impression were similar to the results obtained from the social survey. The regression model for group 1 consisted of the major variable of visual image and acoustic comfort, whereas only acoustic comfort was important in the regression model for group 2. The regression
TABLE V. Correlation coefcients between overall impression and contexts.a Acoustic comfort 0.91 0.77** 0.83**
**

models of groups 1 and 2 were statistically signicant (p < 0.01), and the respective determination coefcients (r2) were 0.66 and 0.69.
2. Qualitative analysis

Group 1 and 2 1 2
a*

Visual image 0.83 0.67** 0.59**

**

Daylight 0.66 0.45** 0.29*

**

Fragrances and odors 0.76 0.49** 0.46**

**

Reverberance 0.34* 0.27* 0.47*

p < 0.05, **p < 0.01. J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 130, No. 6, December 2011

Qualitative analysis was also performed based on the participants impressions. Grounded theory (a qualitative research methodology that seeks to generate data-driven conclusions) was used for textual analysis of the descriptions.42,43 The data analysis procedure consisted of three coding steps: open, axial, and selective. During open coding, categories were identied based on the data. Keywords were extracted from the descriptions, and incipient conceptualizations were limited and associated with specic concepts. Data that reected similar issues were identied, and coded by attaching keywords to the segments of text which reected common issues and themes. The codes were then compared and clustered to form a category. In axial coding, the categories identied during open coding were assembled to allow for a more complete explanation of the soundscape perceptions. The process helps relate categories and subcategories. Selective coding involved selections of a number of categories that helped integrate the categories and develop the theory. Throughout the coding processes, perceptions of soundscapes were categorized into four themes, as shown in Fig. 6:
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FIG. 6. The set of categories, their properties and dimensions, discovered through the open coding procedure with the descriptions from soundwalks.

(1) acoustic environment, (2) physical context, (3) psychological context, and (4) responses and outcomes. In the case of acoustic environment, various types of sound sources were explained in terms of natural and articial sources, soundmarks, and temporal characteristics. However, descriptions of the effects of space (such as reection and reverberance) were not found. The physical contexts consisted of spatial aspects, as well as visual images and olfactory aspects. The visual images related to color, brightness, green space, waterfronts, and landmarks, while the olfactory aspects were divided into pleasant and unpleasant odors. Spatial aspects (which were not considered in either the social survey or the soundwalk) were also observed in terms of openness and density. Psychological contexts were grouped into two categories, individual and socio-cultural. Individual context is related to sensitivity and experience, whereas socio-cultural context is concerned with urban images. Moreover, responses and outcomes were extracted from the collected data, including positive, neutral, and negative responses, and outcomes in which the participant chose to stay and spend time in the space, that with the participant leaving the space, and that in which the participant demanded improvement in the space.
IV. DISCUSSION A. Contexts affecting the perception of an urban soundscape

In the present study, acoustic comfort, visual image, daylight, fragrance and odor, reverberance, and soundmark were considered as contexts that affect soundscape perception. It was found that overall impression was strongly related to most of these contexts except for reverberance, and characteristics of classied urban soundscapes were described according to acoustic comfort, visual image, and daylight. In addition, a soundwalk carried out in different sites from those of the social survey conrmed the ndings of the survey. However, the contexts included in the present
J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 130, No. 6, December 2011

study are subjective attributes; thus, physical attributes that explain the subjective contexts remain to be considered. Recently, an ISO document (ISO/TC 43/SC 1/WG 54 N 28) recommended a conceptual framework for soundscape perception, highlighting six general concepts and their relationships: (1) sound sources, (2) acoustic environment, (3) context, (4) audition (the hearing process), (5) soundscape perception, and (6) human responses or outcomes. In particular, context factors that may inuence soundscape perception are included, such as visual image, landscape, lighting conditions, topography, and previous experiences. The conceptual framework of soundscape perception in the ISO document is similar to the contexts considered in the questionnaire and the categories extracted from the soundwalk. The acoustic environment of a place was evaluated in terms of preference for reverberance in the present study, and there was a considerable range of reverberance within the sites studied (which included reverberant urban canyons and non-reverberant open parks). Although physical measurements of reverberation and reections were not made, such measurements may assist in the interpretation of the role of reverberance in future studies. The issue raised by this study is that even though reverberance was noticeably different between sites, participants did not agree on preference for this attribute which may mean that it plays a relatively minor role in social preference for soundscapes for the types of sites studied here within the cultural context of this study. The ISO document addresses spatial aspects in terms of reverberation and reection patterns, but the present study showed that participants perceive spatial aspects with regard to openness and density. Therefore, spatial aspects of the urban soundscape should be explained using subjective as well as physical evaluations.
B. Comparison of the survey with soundwalk

The present study adopted two methodologies, social survey and soundwalk, to evaluate urban soundscapes. The two methods had signicant differences with regard to participant
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point of view and evaluation location. During the social survey, pedestrians were selected randomly at each site, whereas experts in acoustics participated in the soundwalk. Each participant in the social survey evaluated only one site, whereas acousticians on the soundwalk experienced six sites along the routes and evaluated all of them. In the case of the soundwalk, experiences during travel from one site to the next inuenced the perception of the urban soundscape. Differences between the social survey and soundwalk may inuence the perception of the urban soundscape and result in different subjective ratings. The results of the social survey revealed that the relationship between overall impression and sound pressure level was not statistically signicant. By contrast, sound pressure level was correlated with overall impression in the soundwalk (r 0.65, p < 0.01). This may be because the acousticians were more sensitive to loudness than were the pedestrians, and the experts could compare the differences in sound pressure level between sites during the soundwalk. However, the correlation coefcient between the overall impression and sound pressure level was lower than those between overall impression and the other contexts (apart from reverberance). Different subjective ratings between the social survey and soundwalk also could be partly attributed to cultural difference, as all subjects of the social survey were Korean whereas subjects from ve different countries participated in the soundwalk in Sydney. This is consistent with previous ndings,44 which reported that cultural differences between countries could lead to signicantly different subjective evaluations. Even though urban soundscapes were evaluated by different methods, two things in common between them were observed. First, the classied groups from the social survey and soundwalk were similar. Sites for the social survey were classied into groups AC, representing designed soundscape, noisy soundscape, and natural landmark, respectively. Similarly, soundwalk sites were divided into only two groups: Groups 1 and 2, which correspond to groups A and B from the social survey, respectively. However, the group representing natural landmark did not emerge from the soundwalk analysis, even though sites 6 and 12 were large city parks. This may be because the evaluation spots of sites 6 and 12 were located around the boundary of the park, and participants did not fully experience the sites since the soundwalks ended at those sites. If sites 6 and 12 had been located in the middle of the soundwalk, they probably would have been categorized into group C. Second, dominant contexts affecting overall impression of classied groups from the survey and soundwalk were similar. Overall impressions of groups A and B were mainly dependent upon acoustic comfort and visual image and this is also the case for groups 1 and 2 obtained from soundwalk.
C. Effects of visitation frequency on the perception of an urban soundscape

FIG. 7. Evaluation results for group visitation frequency (low, moderate, and high).

this study, three groups were created on the basis of cumulative probability (33% and 67%). The three groups were regarded as participants with low, moderate, and high visitation frequencies. The numbers of participants belonging to the three groups were 113, 98, and 89, respectively. The subjective ratings for three groups are presented in Fig. 7. Differences between groups were not seen in overall impression, acoustic comfort, or visual image, but greater visitation frequencies resulted in lower evaluation results in the cases of daylight and fragrances and odors. ANOVA and post hoc tests (Tukeys) were conducted to determine the signicance of differences in subjective ratings among the three groups with different visitation frequencies. The results showed that only difference in fragrances and odors among groups was statistically signicant (F(2, 297) 7.68, p < 0.01). Though demographic data, dwelling type, and noise sensitivity were also evaluated, signicant differences between participants were not found.
V. CONCLUSIONS

The effect of visitation frequency on subjective ratings was investigated using the data obtained from the social survey. The participants were divided into several groups according to their standardized score based on the probability density function of the scores for visitation frequency. In
3768 J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 130, No. 6, December 2011

In this study, urban soundscapes were evaluated using a social survey and soundwalks in order to investigate the effects of non-auditory factors on soundscape perception. In the social survey, urban soundscapes were classied into groups AC based on the context evaluation results. In addition, the dominant factors in soundscape perception differed across the classied groups: acoustic comfort and visual image for group A, acoustic comfort for group B, and day lighting for group C. It was also observed that the characteristics of groups AC could be explained by the differences in the soundmarks. In the soundwalk, a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods was adopted to conrm the results of the social survey and to investigate how contexts affected soundscape perception. Soundwalk sites were divided into groups 1 and 2, and overall impressions of them were mainly affected by acoustic comfort and visual image. The results also showed that the evaluation of preferred reverberance in an urban space was not suitable due to the vagueness of this measure. In addition, it was revealed that spatial impressions such as openness and density of urban spaces inuenced soundscape perception. In the future, qualitative interviews of non-experts will be carried out through grounded theory.
Jeon et al.: Non-auditory factors of urban soundscapes

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This research was supported by the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF), funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (2009-0076495).
APPENDIX: QUESTIONNAIRE FOR EVALUATION OF URBAN SOUNDSCAPE (TRANSLATED FROM THE KOREAN)

B. House type: Apartment | Row house | Detached house | Other C. Thinking about the last 12 months, how often do you visit urban spaces? (0: not at all and 10: extremely)
Not at all 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Extremely 9 10

I. PERCEPTION OF URBAN SOUNDSCAPE A. Overall impression What number, from 0 to 10, best represents your preference for the overall soundscape? (0: not at all and 10: extremely)
Not at all 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Extremely 9 10

D. How would you describe your sensitivity to noise? (0: not at all and 10: extremely)
Not at all 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Extremely 9 10

B. Acoustic comfort What number, from 0 to 10, best represents your feeling of acoustic comfort? (0: not at all and 10: extremely)
Not at all 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Extremely 9 10

C. Other contexts What number, from 0 to 10, best represents your preference for each item (visual image, day lighting, olfactory perceptions, and reverberance) (0: not at all and 10: extremely)
Not at all 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Extremely 9 10

II. SOUNDMARK Would you describe soundmarks from surrounding urban space? III. SEMANTIC DIFFERENTIAL To what extent do you agree with 12 statements below on how you experience the present surrounding soundscape?
Extremely Extremely Slightly Slightly Neither

Pleasant Comfortable Disturbing Quiet Calm Natural Distinct Steady Pulsating Nearby Wide Dry

Unpleasant Uncomfortable Not disturbing Noisy Loud Unnatural Usual Unsteady Not pulsating Far Narrow Reverberant

V. INDIVIDUAL INFORMATION A. Gender: Male | Female Age: _

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Jeon et al.: Non-auditory factors of urban soundscapes

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