Appraising the sonic environment of urban parks using the soundscape dimension of visually impaired people

The study aimed to investigate the specific soundscape dimension of visually impaired people and to learn about the possibly unique soundscape dimension elicited by the hearing sense alone. The soundscape dimension of the visually impaired will be used as a reference for improving urban parks to accommodate users inclusively. A semantic-scale questionnaire survey of sighted and visually impaired people in both in-situ and off-site modes was performed. Data were extracted using principal component analysis with polychoric correlations, which produced three soundscape dimensions elicited from the sighted and six from the visually impaired. In sum, evaluation of the park's sonic environment identified the eventfulness soundscape dimension and the pleasantness soundscape dimension as being the most prominent for visually impaired and sighted people, respectively. Highlights An entirely aural soundscape method by visually impaired people is used to appraise urban parks. Soundscape dimension of eventfulness is the most prominent for visually impaired people. Visually impaired people extract more information from the acoustic environment. Visually impaired people sense the danger and direction of a space from sound.