The perception of susurration: envelopment in indoor and outdoor spaces

Davies, WJ

Abstract

This paper investigates a connection between perceptions of indoor and outdoor soundscapes. The word susurration is used in non-scientific writing to describe sounds such as wind in trees and rushing water. It is hypothesised that these sounds give rise to a sensation of envelopment in a similar manner to the indoor susurration of reverberated speech, even when reproduced monophonically. Fifty-three listeners were asked to rate perceived envelopment for susurration and non-susurration sounds. One group of subjects rated the envelopment of susurration sounds highly. Mean envelopment for these listeners is correlated with low-frequency auto-covariance.

Citation

Davies, W. The perception of susurration: envelopment in indoor and outdoor spaces. Presented at 18th Int. Congress on Acoustics, Kyoto, Japan

• Presentation Conference Type: Other
• Conference Name: 18th Int. Congress on Acoustics
• Conference Location: Kyoto, Japan
• End Date: Apr 9, 2004
• Publication Date: Apr 1, 2004
• Deposit Date: Jun 25, 2010
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 25, 2010
• Keywords: Envelopment, spatial, soundscape, susurration
• Additional Information: Event Type : Conference