Perceived Loudness Sensitivity Influenced by Brightness in Urban Forests: A Comparison When Eyes Were Opened and Closed

Xin-Chen Hong,Guang-Yu Wang,Jiang Liu,Emily Dang

doi:10.3390/f11121242

Abstract

Soundscape plays a positive, health-related role in urban forests, and there is a competitive allocation of cognitive resources between soundscapes and lightscapes. This study aimed to explore the relationship between perceived loudness sensitivity and brightness in urban forests through eye opening and closure. Questionnaires and measuring equipment were used to gather soundscape and lightscape information at 44 observation sites in urban forested areas. Diurnal variations, Pearson’s correlations, and formula derivations were then used to analyze the relationship between perception sensitivity and how perceived loudness sensitivity was influenced by lightscape. Our results suggested that soundscape variation plays a role in audio–visual perception in urban forests. Our findings also showed a gap in perception sensitivity between loudness and brightness, which conducted two opposite conditions bounded by 1.24 dBA. Furthermore, we found that the effect of brightness on perceived loudness sensitivity was limited if variations of brightness were sequential and weak. This can facilitate the understanding of individual perception to soundscape and lightscape in urban forests when proposing suitable design plans.

Highlights

IntroductionUrban forests contribute to healthy environments for the public in high-density cities [1,2]
Urban forests contribute to healthy environments for the public in high-density cities [1,2].Forested areas provide health benefits to individuals through the stimulation of sensorium, such as smell, vision, and hearing [3,4]
Based on the above results, we suggest that the cognitive resources of perceived lightscape are mutative from the gap variation between perceived soundscape sensitivity when the eyes are open and closed

Summary

Introduction

Urban forests contribute to healthy environments for the public in high-density cities [1,2]. Forested areas provide health benefits to individuals through the stimulation of sensorium, such as smell, vision, and hearing [3,4]. Soundscapes play a positive health-related role in urban areas, especially natural soundscapes in urban forests, which could increase health levels of individuals [13,14,15]. Perceived soundscape occurrences contribute to enhanced connections between soundscape and other perceptions in urban areas [16,17]. These factors demonstrate that soundscapes are the result of energy, and the activators of health in urban forests. Due to the presence of various plants growing in the vertical axis, which conduct various light and shadow conditions, lightscape is a potential driver that affects soundscape in urban forests [18,19]

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Methods

Conclusion