Effects of soundscape on rural landscape perception : Landscape visual aesthetic quality and landscape tranquillity of rural landscapes in China

An increasing number of people visit their local countryside [1-2] because these rural areas can be considered restorative or tranquil environments, providing relief from cognitive overload and reducing stress, where man-made noise is at a low level and the dominance of natural sounds promotes rural landscape tranquillity, and the visual sense of tranquillity is also significant due to the appearance of natural features, such as vegetation, water, and geological features [3]. However, the audiovisual environment on a rural landscape atmosphere can also negatively influence landscape perception. For example, tranquillity is found to be determined by the presence or absence of development and traffic and to be depressed by the presence of litter, people and vehicles as well as poor visual quality of rough and sometimes muddy ground caused by parked vehicles [3-5]. In addition to landscape tranquillity, visual aesthetic quality (VAQ) is often considered to be in the public interest, which is a resource that is valuable for maintaining good psychic health and the tourism potential of a landscape [6-7]. Perception-based assessment usually depends on the VAQ of the assessed landscapes and the landscape type as well as whether the evaluated landscapes meet idealized mental images using choices, rankings or ratings (usually represented by photographs) provided by samples of human viewers [8-9]. While the above studies are mainly focused on landscape perception, few studies have examined the effects of different soundscapes on such perceptions for rural landscapes in China. The aim of this study is therefore to examine the effects of soundscape on landscape VAQ and landscape tranquillity, considering the landscape contents of a distant view, farmland, waterscape, road, and courtyard in rural landscapes in China, which is a rapidly developing country with rapidly changing landscapes. This research was conducted using both audiovisual experiment and eye-tracking test based on landscape field images and sounds collected from typical villages in China.