Author: Wang, Jin
Title: Effects of natural sounds on the perception of road traffic noise
Advisors: Chau, Chi-kwan (BSE)
Degree: M.Eng.
Year: 2016
Subject: Traffic noise.
Noise control.
Hong Kong Polytechnic University -- Dissertations
Department: Department of Building Services Engineering
Pages: vii, 72 pages : color illustrations
Language: English
Abstract: Noise pollution has been highlighted in recent years, and a number of studies indicated that introducing positive natural sounds to enhance the overall acoustical environment that dominant by road traffic noise is acceptable. Among all kinds of water sounds, the sound of sea waves and streams are confirmed to be highly preferred to others. And a sound pressure level difference of 3dBA between water sound and road traffic noise is recommended to be best. While, some also argued that sound with water features no not only mask the unwanted sound like road traffic sound, but also other wanted natural sound. Moreover, water sound increases the overall environmental sound level, and only show effective masking effect when the traffic sound is within low temporal variability. Thus bird song is believed to be a better choice for it enhance the sound script pleasantness regardless of the temporal variability of traffic noise. This study aims to explore the masking ability of stream water sound and bird song after a series of well-designed listening experiments in the library. Response data collected from the questionnaire will also be analyzed. The result of the pilot test shows that sound of the bird is more preferred to stream water sound when combined with road traffic sound. The binary logistic model were used in this study to analysis the experimental results. The finally findings of this study shows both similar results and different results compared with the previous study. The logit model indicates strong correlation of type of natural sound and the noise annoyance. Besides, personal characteristics such as self-rated health status, self-considered noise sensitivity, and gender also influence individual's noise annoyance perception. However, there are still some limitations of this laboratory experiment which need to be improved and more future work need to be conducted. The findings of this study can be used as a guideline in urban soundscape designing and city planning.
Rights: All rights reserved
Access: restricted access

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