The soundscape experience

Abstract

The study describes the results of research carried out to assess urban soundscape quality, taking into account the subjective evaluation given to different sound environments considered to be representative of the urban environment. Subjective sound perception was estimated using a semantic differential questionnaire with 18 pairs of adjectives, related to acoustic and psycho-acoustic sound properties (9 semantic pairs) and to aesthetic and emotional evaluation (9 pairs). The results obtained reveal 3 relevant dimensions which explain 66% of the total variance: Emotional evaluation and Strength (42%), Activity (14%), and Clarity (10%). Furthermore, different sensory profiles were obtained for the sound environments according to the assessment of the semantic pairs.