Abstract
There have been few empirical investigations of how individual differences influence the perception of the sonic environment. The present study included the Big Five traits and noise sensitivity as personality factors in two listening experiments (n = 43, n = 45). Recordings of urban and restaurant soundscapes that had been selected based on their type were rated for Pleasantness and Eventfulness using the Swedish Soundscape Quality Protocol. Multivariate multiple regression analysis showed that ratings depended on the type and loudness of both kinds of sonic environments and that the personality factors made a small yet significant contribution. Univariate models explained 48% (cross-validated adjusted R2) of the variation in Pleasantness ratings of urban soundscapes, and 35% of Eventfulness. For restaurant soundscapes the percentages explained were 22% and 21%, respectively. Emotional stability and noise sensitivity were notable predictors whose contribution to explaining the variation in quality ratings was between one-tenth and nearly half of the soundscape indicators, as measured by squared semipartial correlation. Further analysis revealed that 36% of noise sensitivity could be predicted by broad personality dimensions, replicating previous research. Our study lends empirical support to the hypothesis that personality traits have a significant though comparatively small influence on the perceived quality of sonic environments.
Highlights
People respond in different ways to the soundscape, the “acoustic environment as perceived or experienced and/or understood by a person or people, in context” [1,2]
The predictive models in the two studies resemble each other in terms of the variables included and the overall amount of variation explained, as can be seen by comparing Axelsson’s Tables III and IV with our results from the first phase of the multivariate regression analysis, reported above. We believe that these parallels strengthen the modelling approach where soundscape indicators of different kinds are included, i.e., both acoustic and psychoacoustic measures, such as loudness, and categorical variables that describe more general characteristics
The latter might be a variable emanating from Technological/Human/Natural ratings or a categorical type variable such as the one we determined in our initial selection of stimuli. In both Experiment 1 and Experiment 2, trait emotional stability emerged as a significant predictor of Pleasantness
Summary
People respond in different ways to the soundscape, the “acoustic environment as perceived or experienced and/or understood by a person or people, in context” [1,2]. Differences at societal and cultural levels influence the perception of sonic environments [3,4,5]. At the level of the individual, psychological differences can be charted in terms of broadly defined personality dimensions [7,8,9,10] or narrowly defined traits, such as noise sensitivity [11,12,13,14]. A question of interest is the extent to which personality traits, both narrow and broad, influence the soundscape
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