Abstract
In contemporary society, mental health issues have received increasing attention. Moreover, how people perceive the acoustic environment affects mental health. In religious places, the unique religious soundscape, composed of the acoustic environment and sounds, has an obvious effect on mental health. In China, Han Chinese Buddhism has a long history and is currently the religion with the largest number of believers. The soundscape of temples has always been an important component of creating a Buddhist atmosphere. For this study, questionnaires were distributed to believers and tourists inside and outside several well-known Han Chinese Buddhist temples in China to analyse the relationship between evaluations of temple soundscapes (including the overall acoustic environment and preferences for typical sounds) and mental health and the role of religious belief-related factors in this relationship. The results indicated that for the respondents, the overall acoustic environment of Buddhist temples was significantly correlated with mental health and that a preference for three sounds in Buddhist temples, i.e., bells, wind chimes and chanting sounds, was significantly correlated with mental health. Among religious belief-related factors, attitudes toward Buddhist thought, frequency of temple visitation and purpose for visiting temples can affect the correlation between personal evaluations of temple soundscapes and mental health. For people who partially believe in Buddhist thought, people who visit Buddhist temples twice or less per year, or people who visit temples for tourism purposes, the correlations between evaluations of the overall acoustic environment and mental health are higher than for people without these religious characteristics. For people who fully believe in Buddhist thought or who visit temples neither to worship Buddha nor for tourism purposes, the correlations between the preferences for bells and wind chimes and mental health are higher than for people without these religious characteristics. For people who partially believe in Buddhist thought, the correlation between the preference for chanting and mental health is higher than for people with other attitudes toward Buddhist thought.
Highlights
The concept of soundscapes was first proposed by the Finnish geographer Granö in 1929
In terms of respondents’ evaluation of the quietness of the temple acoustic environment, Figure 1B shows that 129 people (25.85%) chose “quiet,” 227 (45.49%) chose “somewhat quiet,” 97 (19.44%) chose “neither quiet nor noisy,” and 46 (9.22%) chose “somewhat noisy” or “noisy.” In terms of the comfort of the acoustic environment of temples, 127 people (25.45%) chose “comfortable,” 255 (51.10%) chose “somewhat comfortable,” 76 (15.23%) chose “no specific feeling,” and 41 (8.22%) chose “somewhat uncomfortable” or “uncomfortable.” In terms of the harmony of the acoustic environment, 132 people (26.45%) chose “harmonious”, 233
Correlation analysis showed that for people who partially believe in Buddhist thought, as shown in Figures 4A–C, respondent evaluations of the three acoustic environmental factors were all correlated with mental health; the correlation coefficients for quietness, comfort and harmony were 0.125∗, 0.130∗, and 0.226∗∗, respectively. For those who fully believe in Buddhist thought, as shown in Figure 4C, only the evaluation of the harmony of the acoustic environment in the temple was significantly correlated with mental health, with a correlation coefficient of 0.360∗∗. These findings indicate that, compared with evaluations of quietness or comfort, evaluations of harmony were correlated with mental health in respondents with more varied levels of belief in Buddhist thought
Summary
The concept of soundscapes was first proposed by the Finnish geographer Granö in 1929. Scholars have conducted many studies on mental health, some of which have focused on the relationship between mental health and soundscapes or acoustic environments. These results showed that the quiet rural soundscape might benefit the general mental health of the population through its potential for psychological restoration (De Coensel and Botteldooren, 2006). The results from international surveys suggested that long-term noise exposure was associated with mental health problems such as anxiety and depression (Stansfeld et al, 2000; Stansfeld and Matheson, 2003)
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