Tranquillity of external spaces / influence of acoustic and visual factors

尽管英国仍有大约27,000个公园和花园，但宁静空间的数量正受到严重损害，这促使人们对宁静地图以及宁静区域的识别和保护进行系统研究。为了响应欧洲环境噪声评估和管理指令（END），迫切需要对影响宁静的因素进行系统研究。虽然使用纯粹的声学措施根据END定义安静区域是保护宁静空间的重要一步，但仍需要进一步将听觉和视觉因素整合到一个足够精确和实用的整体描述中。已经有几次尝试研究跨模态的相互作用，以及感知到的噪音烦恼程度与特定视觉环境之间的联系。然而，视觉和听觉刺激对于构建宁静空间的相关重要性还远未被理解。这项工作的目的是完成一项关于听觉和视觉刺激如何影响宁静感知的详细调查，以便开发强大的设计工具，用于设计和保护城市和农村地区的宁静空间。这个项目的一个独特之处在于集中尝试确定一个组合的视听场景的宁静的双峰估计。为此目的，组建了一个由验光和声学专家组成的协调一致的小组。拟议的工作是现场数据收集和实验室分析的结合。这项工作旨在更好地理解视觉和听觉刺激对乡村和城市景观宁静感知的影响，完善一种新提出的工程工具，用于设计具有高度可变视听特征的外部宁静空间，并为硕士/博士学生、研究人员和学术人员提供多学科培训。这是第一次系统地研究受声音影响的外部空间的宁静的多感官知觉，将使用先进的信息整合方法进行检查。将根据先前获得的景观类型数据库，确定一系列具有代表性的地点，在这些地点进行视听记录。将开发专门的软件来客观地分析记录的时间和频谱特征。记录的数据也将使用新测试招募的具有代表性的受试者进行分析。布拉德福德大学和谢菲尔德大学提供的两套独特的心理声学套件将用于这些实验。因变量将包括对宁静的总体评级，而自变量将包括噪音描述符、声音质量指标和视觉参数，如场景中自然特征所占的空间和在场人数。客观测量和主观实验的结果将与现有的宁静评估数据库合并，并使用适当的软件进行分析。最近在校园开发了一个独特的户外区域（和平花园）。该设施将用于进行关于宁静的实验，以测试开发的设计工具。这个即将完工的花园是布拉德福德大学和谢菲尔德大学各学院共同努力的结果，他们预见到它将用于各种研究目的，包括对宁静的研究。这项工作将涉及学习工程、生命科学和多媒体课程的硕士/博士学生。

Despite still having around 27,000 public parks and gardens the number of tranquil spaces in the UK is becoming seriously compromised and has prompted systematic research into tranquillity mapping and the identification and protection of Quiet Areas. A systematic study into factors affecting tranquility is urgently needed in response to the European Directive on the Assessment and Management of Environmental Noise (END). Although defining quiet areas in accordance with the END using purely acoustical measures is an important step in protecting tranquil spaces, there is a need to go further and integrate both aural and visual factors into an overall descriptor that will be sufficiently precise and practical. There have been several attempts to study the cross-modal interaction and the link between the perceived degree of noise annoyance and specific visual settings. However, the relevant importance of visual and auditory stimuli for the construction of a tranquil space is far from being understood. The purpose of this work is to complete a detailed investigation on how the auditory and visual stimuli influence the perception of tranquillity in order to develop robust design tools for use in designing and protecting tranquil spaces in urban and rural locations. A unique feature of this project is the focused attempt to determine the bimodal estimate of tranquillity for a combined audiovisual scene. For this purpose a coherent team of optometry and acoustics experts has been assembled. The proposed work is a combination of field data collection and laboratory analysis. The work aims to achieve better understanding of the effects of visual and audio stimuli on the perception of tranquillity of rural and urban landscapes, refine a newly proposed engineering tool for the design of external tranquil spaces with a highly variable audio and visual characteristics and to provide multi-disciplinary training for MSc/PhD students, research and academic staff. For the first time a systematic work on the multisensory perception of tranquillity of external spaces affected by sounds will be examined using avanced method of integration of information. A representative range of locations will be identified at which audio and visual recordings will be taken based on a previously obtained database of landscape types. Special software will be developed to analyse objectively the termporal and spectral characteristics of the recordings. The recorded data will be also analysed using a representative number of subjects recruited for the new tests. Two unique psycho-acoustic suites available at the Universities of Bradford and Sheffield will be used for these experiments. The dependent variables will include an overall rating of tranquillity and the independent variables will include noise descriptors, sound quality indicators and visual parameters such as the space occupied by natural features in the scene and the number of people present. The results of the objective measurements and the subjective experiments will be merged with the existing tranquillity assessment database and analysed using appropriate software. A unique outdoor area (Peace Garden) on campus has been recently developed. This facility will be used to conduct experiments on tranquillity to test the developed design tool. The creation of the garden which is nearing completion was a result of a joint effort between various Schools at the Universities of Bradford and Sheffield who foresaw its use for a variety of research purposes including studies of tranquillity. The work will involve MSc/PhD students who study courses in Engineering, Life Sciences and Multimedia.