title: Audio-visual interactions in environment assessment.
abstract: The aim of the study was to examine how visual and audio information influences audio-visual environment assessment. Original audio-visual recordings were made at seven different places in the city of Poznań. Participants of the psychophysical experiments were asked to rate, on a numerical standardized scale, the degree of comfort they would feel if they were in such an environment. The assessments of audio-visual comfort were carried out in a laboratory in four different conditions: (a) audio samples only, (b) original audio-visual samples, (c) video samples only, and (d) mixed audio-visual samples. The general results of this experiment showed a significant difference between the investigated conditions, but not for all the investigated samples. There was a significant improvement in comfort assessment when visual information was added (in only three out of 7 cases), when conditions (a) and (b) were compared. On the other hand, the results show that the comfort assessment of audio-visual samples could be changed by manipulating the audio rather than the video part of the audio-visual sample. Finally, it seems, that people could differentiate audio-visual representations of a given place in the environment based rather of on the sound sources' compositions than on the sound level. Object identification is responsible for both landscape and soundscape grouping.
authors: Institute of Acoustics, Faculty of Physics, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Umultowska 85, 61-614 Poznań, Poland.
authors: Anna
authors: A
authors: Preis
authors: Institute of Acoustics, Faculty of Physics, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Umultowska 85, 61-614 Poznań, Poland. Electronic address: jedrzej.kocinski@amu.edu.pl.
authors: Jędrzej
authors: J
authors: Kociński
authors: Institute of Acoustics, Faculty of Physics, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Umultowska 85, 61-614 Poznań, Poland.
authors: Honorata
authors: H
authors: Hafke-Dys
authors: Faculty of Social Sciences, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Szamarzewskiego 89, 60-568 Poznań, Poland.
authors: Małgorzata
authors: M
authors: Wrzosek
mesh_terms: D000162:Acoustics; D002947:Cities; D004777:Environment; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D009622:Noise
keywords: Audio-visual assessment; Environmental noise; Soundscape; Subjective assessment of environment