A Comparative Study Of Soundscape In Urban Open Spaces Between Chinaand Russia

Presently more than half of the world’s population resides in urban areas.Thus,the creation favourable urban environment is an actual topic.In spite of the fact that sonic environment and acoustic comfort are not materially tangible,however they are sufficient components of the overall urban environment.The International Standard ISO 12913-1 defines and provides the theoretical basis of ‘soundscape’.It explicates the ‘soundscape’ as an “acoustic environment as perceived or experienced and/or understood by a person or people,in context.” Therefore,this term not only considers the physical parameters of the sonic environment,but also relies on the perception of a human being,and what is important to emphasize ‘in a context’.The context depends on various factors,including the presence of a personal and sociocultural background and can affect individual perception of acoustic environment.Nevertheless,the influence of the socio-cultural background on the acoustic environment perception still haven’t been sufficiently investigated.Moreover,studies comparing Russia and China still haven’t been conducted.Despite the fact,that Russia and China are similar in the direction of development,however,the cultural difference between these two countries is strongly different.Therefore,in this study the subject of ‘soundscape’ was considered through the prism of the influence of cultural factor.In this paper cross-cultural research was conducted in three main parts: the comparison of sound environment in Russia and China,the comparison of sound environment perception between Russians and Chinese,and the investigation of the influence of the demographic factors into the soundscape evaluation.First,the sound environments in urban open spaces in Russia and China were compared.This comparison was separated into three subdivisions and included the investigation of streets zones,urban parks zones,and the overall soundscape comparison.The comparison was conducted in three stages: the comparison of physical parameters of an acoustic environment,the sound sources comparison,and the semantic comparison.As a result of this comparison sound environment in Russia was significantly quieter,than in China.Also,sound sources comparison was conducted.Interesting to note,that in the same architectural background the set of sound sources could be various in Russia and China.Moreover,the same sound sources could be evaluated differently in the divers conditions.The strongest correlation was found in the evaluation of Music sound.According to semantic comparison Russian sound environment was significantly more positive,than Chinese.Second,the comparison of soundscape perception between Russians and Chinese was conducted.Based on the evaluation of sound sources and on the semantic comparison,Russian participants were more positive in the sound environment evaluation.Russian participants had a higher evaluation of the Russian sound environment,while Chinese participants had a higher evaluation of Chinese sound environment.Therefore,we could conclude that for a person with a certain cultural background,the best sound environment was his/her native environment.According to the third part of the research,several demographic factors could have an influence into the soundscape perception.For instance,age could affect on the feeling of comfort,educational level and income correlated with feeling of pleasantness and naturality.People with high education felt less happy,however people with low income were less satisfied with sound environment.Mood also affected on the sound environment perception.The lowest rates for the sound environment gave people,who were sad during the experiment,especially for the “Pleasantness”,“interestingness” and “Like”rates.Moreover,the duration of being in China for Russian participants also affected the perception of the soundscapes.Russian participants who stayed in China gave the highest rates for the sound environment during the experiment.The above results show that cross-cultural factor should be considered during the soundscape evaluation.Thereby,a theoretical basis for the design and improvement of urban open public spaces considering cultural layout should be provided.