Cross-cultural evaluation of indoor soundscapes in residential areas

The acoustic environment is a unique parameter that distinguishes an environment from others and directly affects the comfort of people. Therefore, when soundscape perception of a certain acoustic environment is considered, detailed analysis of both the environment and the people is required. Nonetheless, the context where the evaluation takes place is the key for the soundscape perception and its analysis due to the differentiation of space usage, social factors and cultural aspects. In this research, the comparison of the soundscape perception of Arabic people and Turkish people residing in Ankara, Turkey is studied considering their cultural, social and climatic background variations. The study analyzes the overall soundscape evaluation of the targeted populations in the context of their houses located in Ankara through questionnaire. A detailed literature review on questionnaire design on topics considering, sound source perception, soundscape evaluation and noise annoyance is the initial focus of the study. In addition, similar case studies that researched the subject in different contexts by using the same methodologies are reviewed in order to structure the main discussion points. Questionnaire designing process and the initial findings of the study are presented by focusing on the comparison of two different groups with varying backgrounds and their soundscape perception.