Methods - Soundscape Ecology: Principles, Patterns, Methods and Applications - page 218

Chapter 9
Methods

9.1 Introduction

Soundscape ecology is a young science with a broad range of field and laboratory
approaches from bioacoustics to psychoacoustics and truly heterogeneous methods
to collect, process, and interpret sonic data. Two principal fields of investigation are
direct investigation of the physical structure of the sound (amount of energy,
distribution of such energy in the different frequency domains) and a semantic
approach to sound description as culturally perceived by humans. The two
approaches can be combined when, for instance, the goal is to investigate the
physical and psychological consequences of noise on human physiology and
behavior.
Physical and biological dimensions of the soundscape are collected with hard-
ware. The human dimension of the sonic environment is more often investigated by
using interviews or ad hoc forms. In some cases the interviews or the questionnaires
are coupled to the presentation of images because the psychological components of
sound perception in many cases are dependent on simple acoustic perception.
Several approaches thus are available to collect information from the sonic

environment:

(a) Automatic Recording Procedure (ARP)
(b) Direct Aural Procedure (DAP)
(c) Direct Aural Interpretation Procedure (DAIP)
(d) Public Interviews Procedure (PIP)

ARP can be used to collect sonic information for all occasions.
DAP is a procedure utilized by ecologists to evaluate richness, diversity, and
dynamics of vocal animals directly by ears.
DAIP is a procedure utilized for soundscape evaluation or assessment for
human use.
PIP is a psychoacoustic procedure to collect human feelings about the

soundscape.