A research on assessment of soundscape in urban area by means of Caption Evaluation Method: effects of context on evaluation of soundscape

Caption Evaluation Method is a technique that was developed in Japan to learn about the reason of evaluation of landscape. The investigative method is a formalized one and can show the element of landscape that a person focused on when he made an evaluation of the landscape, and the reason why he made a good or bad evaluation on it. In the present research, Caption Evaluation Method is applied to the survey of soundscape in urban area. Twenty-one subjects were instructed to walk along the predetermined route, and to take a picture and make evaluation of soundscape when they found out sound that attracted their attention. They rated the sound as good, bad or normal, and they reported the character and impression of it by formalized questionnaire. As a result, one hundred fifty-seven sound elements were obtained. They were classified under the proposed way in the previous research. Results show that traffic noise is assessed bad by almost all the people because of its noisy character, but sound from information display system receives different assessment among people. It is supposed that evaluation of not so noisy sound can be easily affected by the context in a person's mind.