Exploring the Validity of the Perceived Restorativeness Soundscape Scale: A Psycholinguistic Approach.

Sarah R Payne,Catherine Guastavino

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02224

Abstract

Soundscapes affect people's health and well-being and contribute to the perception of environments as restorative. This paper continues the validation process of a previously developed Perceived Restorativeness Soundscape Scale (PRSS). The study takes a novel methodological approach to explore the PRSS face and construct validity by examining the qualitative reasons for participants' numerical responses to the PRSS items. The structure and framing of items are first examined, to produce 44 items which are assessed on a seven-point Likert agreement scale, followed by a free format justification. Ten English speaking participants completed the PRSS interpretation questionnaire in two cafes in Montréal, Canada. Interpretation of participant free format responses led to six themes, which related to either the individual (personal attributes, personal outcomes), the environment (physical environment attributes, soundscape design) or an interaction of the two (behavior setting, normality, and typicality). The themes are discussed in relation to each Attention Restoration Theory (ART) component, namely Fascination, Being-Away, Compatibility, and Extent. The paper concludes by discussing the face and construct validity of the PRSS, as well as the wider methodological and theoretical implications for soundscape and attention restoration research, including the terminology importance in items measuring ART components and the value of all four components in assessing perceived restorativeness.

Highlights

Soundscapes have the potential to enhance or damage our experience of a place and can have important consequences for people’s behavior (e.g., Aletta et al, 2016b; Bild et al, 2016) performance (Clark and Sörqvist, 2012), health and well-being (Stansfeld et al, 2005; World Health Organisation, 2011; Van Kamp et al, 2015)
This paper only explores the reasons for responses rather than the numerical assessment, as the sample size is small and the aim is the interpretation of the items, not the assessment of these café soundscapes
The themes developed from the authors’ interpretation of the data is presented. This is followed by a detailed explanation of each theme using data examples, and discusses the implications of the results in relation to the Attention Restoration Theory (ART) components, Perceived Restorativeness Soundscape Scale (PRSS) validity, and related literature

Summary

Introduction

Soundscapes have the potential to enhance or damage our experience of a place and can have important consequences for people’s behavior (e.g., Aletta et al, 2016b; Bild et al, 2016) performance (Clark and Sörqvist, 2012), health and well-being (Stansfeld et al, 2005; World Health Organisation, 2011; Van Kamp et al, 2015). Sustainable environments, soundscape assessment tools are necessary to understand individuals’ experiences. Assessments of an environment’s potential to provide attention restoration can be made using scales assessing the extent an environment is perceived as having the qualities, or components that are theoretically considered important for restoration. Scales such as the Perceived Restorativeness Scale (PRS; Hartig et al, 1997) and the Perceived Restorative Component scale (PRC; Laumann et al, 2001) are commonly used in studies which only present visual cues. The aim of this paper is to further examine the validity of PRSS items, through a psycholinguistic analysis of participants’ free format descriptions which justify their numerical PRSS item ratings

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Conclusion