The soundscape and the degree of match of a waterfront with the expectations placed on it. The cases study of Naples and Brighton

The conceptually-driven process filters the perceived sensory information regarding different factors such as the expectation, interests, previous experiences, believes and context. Therefore, through the codification of a complex cognitive structure the expectation that subjects have on a specific environment can influence the consequent perception of it. Some of the acoustic studies on the effect of the expectations are related with the sound sources expected to hear, the expected soundscape quality or the expected attributes of the sonic environment. This research however focussed on the degree of match with the expectations place on a site and how different factors, among them the soundscape quality, affect it. To do that, an artificial neural model was calculated for the degree of match with the subject's expectations with subjective factors as input variables. The expectations on two waterfronts were compared: Naples and Brighton. The outcomes show that, although some of the variables that compose both models are the same, the contribution of the factors to the overall satisfaction of the expectations is different.