The Soundscape Indices (SSID) Protocol: A Method for Urban Soundscape Surveys—Questionnaires with Acoustical and Contextual Information

A protocol for characterizing urban soundscapes for use in the design of Soundscape Indices (SSID) and general urban research as implemented under the European Research Council (ERC)-funded SSID project is described in detail. The protocol consists of two stages: (1) a Recording Stage to collect audio-visual recordings for further analysis and for use in laboratory experiments, and (2) a Questionnaire Stage to collect in situ soundscape assessments via a questionnaire method paired with acoustic data collection. Key adjustments and improvements to previous methodologies for soundscape characterization have been made to enable the collation of data gathered from research groups around the world. The data collected under this protocol will form a large-scale, international soundscape database.

[1]  Woon-Seng Gan,et al.  Quality assessment of acoustic environment reproduction methods for cinematic virtual reality in soundscape applications , 2019, Building and Environment.

[2]  William J. Davies,et al.  Soundscape reproduction and synthesis , 2014 .

[3]  Jorge P Arenas,et al.  A comprehensive methodology for the multidimensional and synchronic data collecting in soundscape. , 2017, The Science of the total environment.

[4]  Woon-Seng Gan,et al.  Spatial Audio for Soundscape Design: Recording and Reproduction , 2017 .

[5]  Catherine Lavandier,et al.  A cross-national comparison in assessment of urban park soundscapes in France, Korea, and Sweden through laboratory experiments , 2018 .

[6]  Monika Rychtarikova,et al.  Soundscape categorization on the basis of objective acoustical parameters , 2013 .

[7]  David Whitaker,et al.  The importance of auditory-visual interaction in the construction of ‘tranquil space’ , 2010 .

[8]  Jian Kang,et al.  Towards an Urban Vibrancy Model: A Soundscape Approach , 2018, International journal of environmental research and public health.

[9]  Jian Kang,et al.  Towards standardization in soundscape preference assessment , 2011 .

[10]  Jian Kang,et al.  Acoustic comfort evaluation in urban open public spaces , 2005 .

[11]  Pierre Aumond,et al.  Modeling Soundscape Pleasantness Using perceptual Assessments and Acoustic Measurements Along Paths in Urban Context , 2017 .

[12]  Don Knox,et al.  Experience sampling: Assessing urban soundscapes using in-situ participatory methods , 2017 .

[13]  Luigi Maffei,et al.  Ten questions on the soundscapes of the built environment , 2016 .

[14]  Jian Kang,et al.  Soundscape descriptors and a conceptual framework for developing predictive soundscape models , 2016 .

[15]  Jian Kang,et al.  Soundscape expectations of rural tourism: A comparison between Chinese and English potential tourists. , 2018, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[16]  Luca Evangelisti,et al.  Exploring the compatibility of “Method A” and “Method B” data collection protocols reported in the ISO/TS 12913-2:2018 for urban soundscape via a soundwalk , 2019 .

[17]  Jin Yong Jeon,et al.  Non-auditory factors affecting urban soundscape evaluation. , 2011, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[18]  P. Bech,et al.  The WHO-5 Well-Being Index: A Systematic Review of the Literature , 2015, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics.

[19]  Dick Botteldooren,et al.  Classification of soundscapes of urban public open spaces , 2019, Landscape and Urban Planning.

[20]  Jian Kang,et al.  Effect of soundscape dimensions on acoustic comfort in urban open public spaces , 2018 .

[21]  B. Berglund,et al.  A principal components model of soundscape perception. , 2010, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[22]  André Fiebig,et al.  A Review of Socio-acoustic Surveys for Soundscape Studies , 2018, Current Pollution Reports.

[23]  Catherine Lavandier,et al.  Sound quality indicators for urban places in Paris cross-validated by Milan data. , 2015, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[24]  Birgitta Berglund,et al.  On a tool for measuring soundscape quality in urban residential areas , 2006 .

[25]  W. Horner-Johnson,et al.  Examining functional content in widely used Health-Related Quality of Life scales. , 2011, Rehabilitation psychology.

[26]  P. Harris,et al.  Research electronic data capture (REDCap) - A metadata-driven methodology and workflow process for providing translational research informatics support , 2009, J. Biomed. Informatics.

[27]  Matteo Lionello,et al.  Making cities smarter with new soundscape indices , 2019 .

[28]  M. Foraster,et al.  Perceptual evaluation of the citizen’s acoustic environment from classic noise monitoring , 2020 .

[29]  Daniele Quercia,et al.  FaceLift: a transparent deep learning framework to beautify urban scenes , 2020, Royal Society Open Science.

[30]  Paul A. Harris,et al.  The REDCap consortium: Building an international community of software platform partners , 2019, J. Biomed. Informatics.

[31]  Catherine Guastavino,et al.  Categorization of environmental sounds. , 2007, Canadian journal of experimental psychology = Revue canadienne de psychologie experimentale.