Comparing soundscape assessment methods with natural-language expressions and a questionnaire survey: A case study in Seoul, Korea

Abstract

A Swedish soundscape quality protocol was developed and has been used as a representative soundscape-quality assessment method around Europe. However, this protocol has limitations in Asian countries because the countries have distinctly different social and cultural backgrounds and form their own unique soundscapes. Consequently, this study examined the utility of a soundscape assessment survey for Koreans by comparing unconstrained natural-language expressions and existing protocol survey questions. To this end, soundscape data from a variety of places, e.g., parks, tourist attractions, and commercial areas in Seoul, Korea, were collected using 360-deg cameras and Soundfield microphones. In addition, a virtual-reality (VR) assessment environment was constructed using a head-mounted device (HMD) and 3-D audio technology under laboratory conditions, and the collected soundscapes were assessed. The participants were encouraged to freely and verbally express their thoughts about the sound environment of each place, and text data were obtained through voice-recognition technology. The protocol survey was conducted for the same subjects after the assessment. The results showed that it is necessary to develop a soundscape assessment standard that is appropriate for Koreans because differences from the existing European-style soundscape protocol were revealed in the assessment items, when an emotional analysis was conducted using text-mining technology.