Citizen Science and Soundscape Perception during Covid restrictions in the UK

Winchester Science Centre in Southern England hosts a significant number of informative exhibits pertaining to principles of acoustics; one such example being on the subject of euphony. In a period of time between the first and third COVID lockdowns, visitors to this exhibit were asked what sounds they noticed more or less of, and what their favourite and least favourite sounds were during this period.The results are shared with two-fold benefit: to assist the public perception of noise and euphony, and to capture the aural response of the public to the 2020 COVID restrictions.This paper explores these results, but also the potential for conducting research from a larger cohort of visitors using a citizen science approach to deliver big data sets, to further explore the perception of sound in the environment with regard to its context.