Conference_programme: 20.3 - Soundscapes of Public Spaces

Lecture: On perceived audio-visual quality of urban public space

Author(s): Axelsson Östen

Summary:
Little is known about how perceived auditory and visual quality contribute to the perceived overall quality of urban public space. This paper reports on a laboratory experiment in which 30 university students assess their perception of video recordings of 4 urban public spaces in and around an urban park located near a busy street in Stockholm. The videos were recorded before and after a low-height noise barrier (140 cm high) was erected by the street. Each video was rendered in three versions: audio only, video only, and audio-visual. The participants assessed the videos in that order on what factors (manmade, natural and human presence) dominated the impression of the place, how pleasant and eventful the place was, as well as on how good or bad, how secure or safe and how attractive the place was perceived to be. Regression analysis was used to investigate how the assessments of the audio only and video only conditions predict the assessment of the audio-visual condition. The results showed that overall the assessments of the video only condition was a stronger predictor of the assessment of the audio-visual condition than the assessments of the audio only condition. This is in contrast to previous results from the same place conducted in situ. Then auditory assessment was a stronger predictor of the overall assessment than visual assessment for sites with poor acoustic quality. The paper will discuss these contrasting results.

Corresponding author

Name: Dr Östen Axelsson

e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Country: Sweden