VR Environment-based Evaluation of Impact Factors on the Urban Soundscape Recognition

Abstract

To investigate the impact of soundscape spatial change factors in a pleasant urban environment, we evaluated a soundscape in a virtual reality (VR) environment and investigated the audiovisual impact factors on the soundscape. First, nine evaluation points were selected around Area A, and three-minute sound environments were selected at each point using a 360-degree camera (Insta360) and a SoundField (SPS200) microphone to investigate changes in the sound pressure level and frequency characteristics. Subjective responses, such as overall satisfaction, soundscape evaluation factors, and landscape evaluation factors, were evaluated in three environments (audio, visual, and audio with visual) based on the sound environment measurement data. To realize the immersive environment, the subjects were allowed to move freely in VR by reflecting the direction of the sound source and head rotations. Assessments of the level of immersion and sense of reality were used to verify the experimental environment. The experiment results showed that, in terms of the soundscape evaluation factors, overall satisfaction decreased as traffic noise increased and human sounds decreased. As for the landscape evaluation factors, the vegetation factor was the most dominant; as the green area increased, the overall satisfaction increased despite the noise factor. As a result, as the visual factors related to natural element, such as green area, increased, the auditory complaint factor was controlled and satisfaction towards the urban soundscape improved.