PhD Listening Test - The Perceived Annoyance of Urban Soundscapes

["Craig, Adam" <Adam.Craig@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello Auditory Members,

As part of my PhD research, I am currently looking into the effects of environmental noise on the public. Annoyance is one of the main factors which contribute to a negative view of environmental noise, and can lead to stress-related health conditions. Subjective perception of environmental sounds is dependent upon a variety of factors related to the sound, the geographical location and the listener. Noise maps used to communicate information to the public about environmental noise in a given geographic location are based on simple noise level measurements, and do not include any information regarding how perceptually annoying or otherwise the noise might be.
This study involves subjective assessment of a corpus of sixty pre-recorded urban soundscapes collected from a variety of locations around Glasgow City Centre. Binaural recordings were taken at three points during each 24 hour period in order to capture urban noise during day, evening and night. Perceived annoyance will be measured using Likert and numerical scales and each soundscape measured in terms of arousal and positive/negative valence. Hopefully, the results will shed light on the subjective annoyance of environmental sound in a range of urban locations around Glasgow, and will form the basis for development of environmental noise maps which more fully communicate the effects of environmental noise to the public.
If you would like to take part in the study, please go to:
www.glasgow3dsoundmap.co.uk<http://www.glasgow3dsoundmap.co.uk>

You will need headphones due to the nature of the recordings. Also, try and avoid using Firefox if you can!

Thanks for your help!

Regards,


Adam Craig
Glasgow Caledonian University, Scotland.

Glasgow Caledonian University is a registered Scottish charity, number SC021474