Interaction between acoustic environment and landscape--the effect of acoustic environment on perceived landscape and the effect of landscape on perceived acoustic environment

The effect of acoustic environment on the impression of the landscape and the effect of the landscape on the impression of the acoustic environment were investigated by a multivariate technique using a semantic differential method. The resulting five dimensions were interpreted as "Calmness", "Activity", "Naturalness", "Uniqueness", and "Volume (Magnitude)" for both landscape and sound evaluations. These common psychological qualities are considered to be the intermodalities of visual and auditory processing. Further, the consonance phenomenon through the intermodalities, a kind of interaction between auditory and visual processing which changes the psychological qualities to the same direction, was observed when the combination of the acoustic environment and landscape was evaluated to be matched. These results may be the basis of the soundscape design under various kinds of landscape.