Visual perception factors on the soundscape of urban shopping streets: Environmental factors

Abstract

In urban areas, the urge to improve acoustic environments has led to an increasing interest in the soundscape as an alternative approach to address noise pollution issues. Several studies have shown that the soundscape approach can manage the unwanted sound and transform it into resource sound in the areas, while the urban street context is expected to play an important role too. Thus, this study aims to assess visual perception factors on soundscape (appropriateness, calmness, and eventfulness) of urban shopping street as an environmental factors. Data was collected in three urban shopping streets at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia through a soundscape survey (n = 411) according to the ISO12913-2 technical specifications standards. Multiple Linear Regression was used to analyse the data. The findings revealed in three aspects, that are: (1) The interesting, beautiful and harmonious indicators under visual quality of environment dimension were highly preferred by the users. (2) All the soundscape dimensions have significant effects on the predictors. Appropriateness (R2=.454) is the most prominent factor, followed by eventfulness (R2=.298) and calmness (R2=.139). (3) All soundscape dimension has a higher impact on visual perception (β=.536, β=.356, and β=.202) than other predictors by comparing the standardised coefficients. The result from the present study showed that visual perception factors could be helpful indicators for better understanding soundscapes and assist the urban planners, architects and landscape architects in designing conducive acoustic environment of urban shopping streets.