PROCEEDINGS of the
23rd International Congress on Acoustics
9 to 13 September 2019 in Aachen, Germany

The Human Perception based on Memory Recall of the Multi-sensory
Stimuli in Outdoor Urban SpaceNi Putu Amanda NITIDARA1; Anugrah Sabdono SUDARSONO1; Ranti Dwi TASSIA1; JokoSARWONO1; FX Nugroho SOELAMI1
1

Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia

ABSTRACTThe human perception of environment condition is one of the aspects that greatly affect the use of open public
space in a built environment. Studies related to the perception generally observe only one physical aspect in
an isolated manner, in which the interrelationships between physical aspects are not considered. In themeantime, human beings are naturally multi-sensory and the human perception is exposed by multi-sensory
stimuli that influence each other. This study tries to look at that relationship of multi-sensory stimuli tohuman perception, especially in the outdoor urban environment. In this study, we implement asemi-structured question to understand people's perception based on their memory of four outdoor urban
areas in Bandung. The questionnaire explores the relationship between three physical aspects, aural, thermal,
and visual. Three main perceptions were found, comfort, spatial, and age/era. There is also evidence showingthat multi-sensory stimuli affect the same perception, e.g. thermal and visual affect comfort perception. The
finding of this study shows preliminary evidence of multi-sensory perception in an urban area. Thisknowledge will be a powerful tool for understanding the perception of the urban environment and help in theprocess of urban area design and enhancement.
Keywords: Perception, Multi-sensory, Audial, Visual, Thermal

1. INTRODUCTION
Public open space has several benefits, it is a place for people to perform activities such as physicalactivity, relaxation, and also social interaction (1,2). The human perception of environment conditionis one aspect that greatly influences the use of public open space (3). There have been many studies
that observe the perception of comfort from the physical aspects of the environment. These research
generally only observe one physical aspect and isolate it from other physical aspects (unimodal),where the interrelationships between physical aspects are not considered (4–7). Meanwhile, humans
are multisensory beings and in the environment, human perception is exposed to multisensory stimuli
and it is very possible that the stimuli are influencing each other (8).
This study tries to look at that relationship of multi-sensory stimuli to human perception, especiallyin the outdoor urban environment. This study answers the question “how is the relationship between
the three physical parameters, audial, thermal, and visual, to define the human perception in a public
open space?” Audial, thermal, and visual physical parameters are the main stimuli commonly found in
outdoor environments, besides that these three physical parameters also have measurable objective
parameters so that the relation between objective and subjective measured can be made. There has
been some research showing the preliminary relationship between these sensory, for example visual –audial, visual – thermal, and audial – thermal (9–14). However, no research has been found thatobserves these three stimuli simultaneously for outdoor environmental conditions. This knowledge
will be a powerful tool for understanding the perception of the urban environment and help in theprocess of urban area design and enhancement.
The method of identifying human perception usually using in situ measurement, questionnaire, andlaboratory experiment (15–17). Recently an internet-based survey starts to be explored. This research,trying to explore the method of the survey using internet based and human expectation or previous
collective memory about a space to judge the human perception in open public space (18,19).

7940

2. EXPERIMENT METHOD
The experiment was conducted using an online questionnaire. This online questionnaire wasdistributed as a preliminary questionnaire to the participant of the soundwalk experiment the next day.
Twenty-eight participants (10 males and 18 females) with age range from 20-40 years old joined theexperiment voluntarily. The participants are student and lecturer of architecture, urban planning, andengineering physics. The outdoor urban spaces that were evaluated in this experiment are Alun-Alun,
corridor Jalan Braga, and Taman Balai Kota. These spaces were chosen due to its popularity as well as
it’s iconic aspects of the city.
The questionnaire was divided into three sections: demographic, open-ended questions, andsemantic scale. The open-ended questions trying to explore participant’s perception using their own
words, and then represented in a format of word cloud to give keywords related to the questions (19).
This paper, however, will be focusing on the semantic scale part of the questionnaire and trying to
extract important descriptor that could explain the multisensory perception in urban space.
A total of 29 semantics were used in this experiment. These semantics were chosen from the resultsof Focus Group Discussion between the research team. These semantics contain perception of theacoustic, visual, and thermal environment as well as the general ambiance of the environment. To
judge the environment an 8 point Likert scale was used from -4 to 4 (middle score was removed to
avoid neutral tendency). Table 1 list the semantics that was used in this experiment, Figure 1 shows theonline questionnaire pages.
Table 1 - List of the semantic scale used in the experiment. Notation G = General aspect, T = Thermal aspect,
A = Audial aspect, and V = Visual aspect
Semantic Scale
Comfortable – Uncomfortable (G)Suitable – Not Suitable (G)Like – Dislike (G)Interesting – Not Interesting (G)Private – Public (G)Aged – Young (G)Cheerful – Depressed (G)Dangerous – Safe (G)Active – Passive (G)Dirty – Clean (G)Simple – Complex (G)Easy – Difficult (G)Hurt – Unhurt (G)Hurry – Relax (G)Soft – Rough (G)Luxurious – Free (G)Warm – Cold (T)Breezy – Sunny (T)Quiet – Noisy (A)Boring – Vibrant (A)Big – Small (V)Near – Far (V)Bright – Dull (V)Dated – New (V)Empty – Full (V)Horizontalism – Verticalism (V)Narrow – Spacious (V)Dark – Bright (V)Ornamented – Plain (V)7941

Figure 1 – Example of the online questionnaire where it shows four locations of observations, the evaluation
using Likert scale and simple description

3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
3.1 Main Descriptors of Perception in Outdoor Urban Public Space
From the 29 variables that were used in the semantic analysis part of the questionnaire, factor
analysis was performed to get the main component (descriptor) of human perception in urban spaces.
The data (total of 112 data from 4 location and 28 respondents) shows a good fit to the KMO and
Bartlett test. Eight main components were found that contributes to a total of 67.7% variance in thedata. Table 2 shows the component matrix with the detail of variables and the percentage of variance ineach component. The eight descriptors that were found in this research is related to the perception of
Comfortability, Dynamicity, Age/Era, Safety, Spatiality, Accessibility, Size, and Texture (respectively
from C1-C8).
A further test using Cronbach's Alpha test was performed to check the reliability of variables within
the component. Since C7 only consists of one variable, the reliability test cannot be performed, for the
rest of components, only five (C1, C2, C3, C4, C5) components show an α ≥ 0.5. From those six, only
three components with α ≥ 0.7 which mean showing a good and acceptable correlation (C1, C3, C5)
meanwhile the other three are showing a poor and questionable correlation (C2, C4). The threedescriptors that are found reliable are Comfortability, Age/Era, and Spatiality. A similar study
focusing on sound stimuli has found three main descriptors in an urban area which are Relaxation,
Dynamic, and Communication where the comfortable aspect is included in the descriptor Relaxation(20,21).
The descriptor Comfortability (C1) contributes to 22.9% of variance and consists of the scale ofLike-Dislike, Interesting-Not Interesting, Bright-Dull, Comfortable-Uncomfortable, Suitable-Not
Suitable, Breezy-Sunny, and Active-Passive. This descriptor shows human preference of theirenvironment condition. The next descriptor, Age/Era (C3), is related to the perception of age andnewness of an area as shown from the scale Dated-New and Aged-Young. This descriptor contributes
to 8.5% of the variance in the data. The last descriptor, Spatiality (C5), related to the scale
Luxurious-Free, Narrow-Spacious, Ornamented-Plain, and Near-Far and contributes to 5% of thevariance. This descriptor shows a good representation of the location, where the Alun-Alun and Taman
Balaikota are spacious and full of free facilities for the visitors, meanwhile the perception of narrowand luxurious potentially coming from the Braga Street Corridor where it is full of cafe and shops.

7942

Table 2 - The results of Principal Component Analysis with Promax rotation (KMO = 0.737 and Bartlett’s
test = 0.00)
Component

C1

C2

C3

C4

C5

C6

C7

C8

% of variance

22.9

12.5

8.5

6.7

5.0

4.5

3.9

3.5

Like – Dislike (G)0.750-0.013-0.060-0.159-0.055

0.108

0.029

0.072

Interesting – Not Interesting (G)

0.691-0.195-0.017-0.108

0.133

0.108

0.057

0.202

Bright – Dull (V)

0.678-0.1820.426-0.1220.002-0.054

0.002

0.013

Comfortable – Uncomfortable (G)

0.637

0.423

0.004

0.017

0.018

-0.051-0.3940.086

Suitable – Not Suitable (G)

0.610

0.144

-0.1580.016-0.0870.045-0.1370.377

Breezy – Sunny (T)0.599-0.005-0.389-0.039-0.222-0.1720.084-0.007

Active – Passive (G)0.416-0.323-0.040-0.050

0.026

0.385

0.033

-0.004

Empty – Full (V)-0.1810.834-0.0360.028-0.221

0.039

0.104

-0.133

Quiet – Noisy (A)

0.247

0.725

-0.129-0.007-0.011-0.302

0.176

0.234

Boring – Vibrant (A)-0.196

0.720

0.029

0.039

-0.0120.389-0.166

0.021

Cheerful – Depressed (G)0.284-0.459-0.254-0.359-0.086-0.037-0.007-0.065

Private – Public (G)

0.023

0.381

0.381

-0.2400.134-0.276-0.001-0.370Dated – New (V)-0.010-0.1590.970-0.112-0.136

0.146

0.005

-0.015

Aged – Young (G)

0.143

0.159

0.857

0.201

0.059

0.200

0.147

0.068

Dirty – Clean (G)-0.331-0.042

0.030

0.728

-0.0320.075-0.0690.195

Dangerous – Safe (G)-0.351

0.237-0.199

0.709

0.092

-0.110

0.109

0.021

Hurry – Relax (G)0.116-0.095

0.165

0.612

-0.001-0.435

0.120

0.009

Simple – Complex (G)-0.271

0.426

0.003

-0.483-0.059

0.176

0.233

0.047

Luxurious – Free (G)-0.191-0.129-0.065-0.1370.791-0.009-0.1260.129

Narrow – Spacious (V)

0.089-0.084-0.428

0.276

0.752

0.062

0.086

-0.172

Ornamented – Plain (V)0.052-0.051

0.238

0.022

0.651

-0.174-0.081-0.011

Near – Far (V)

0.064-0.120

0.451

0.015

0.586

0.085

0.254

-0.024

Easy – Difficult (G)

0.047

0.131

0.269

-0.257

0.005

0.952

-0.0340.216

Warm – Cold (T)0.290-0.143

0.179

0.248

-0.141

0.356

0.089

-0.059Big – Small (V)

0.150

0.248

0.113

-0.029

0.105

0.080

0.890

0.062

Hurt – Unhurt (G)-0.246-0.142

0.061

0.074

-0.249-0.204

0.681

0.234

Horizontalism – Verticalism (V)

0.326

0.021

0.063

0.171

-0.088

0.233

0.139

0.858

Soft – Rough (G)

0.032

0.096

-0.267-0.401

0.257

0.054

0.176

0.522

Dark – Light (V)-0.181-0.153

0.258

0.138

0.143

-0.207-0.203

0.506

Cornbach’s Alpha Score

0.805

0.668

0.746

0.684

0.710

-

0.439

0.351

Variables

3.2 Multisensory Perception of Comfort in Outdoor Urban Public SpaceA multisensory relationship was found in the descriptor Comfortability and Dynamicity. In theperception of comfort, a relationship between visual and thermal perception was found. The semantic

7943

Bright-Dull that represent visual perception and semantic Breezy-Sunny that represent thermal
perception. The other descriptor where a multisensory relationship was found is the Dynamicity. This
perception consists of visual aspects with scale Empty-Full and acoustic aspects with scales
Quiet-Noisy and Boring-Vibrant.
Using the correlation matrix between components (only reliable component were included) a modelof comfortability in urban public space were made as illustrated in Figure 2. Additional descriptor
Dynamicity was included in the model as it consists of the multisensory relationship as well, eventhough the reliability of the component itself is still questionable (α = 0.668). An inverse relationshipwas found between component Comfortability and the rest of the components (Dynamicity, Age/Era,and Spatiality). Trying to interpret the results, first is to compare the Comfortability with the
Dynamicity descriptors, the model suggests that a comfortable public space is expected with acondition that is full, a lot of visitors and vibrant in sound. In terms of Age/Era, a young and new space
was preferred. On the other hand, a more spacious area with free access for the public is preferred.
From this model, it can be interpreted that comfortable urban public space is preferred/expected tohave a visual condition that is bright, and thermal condition that is breezy. However, the acoustic
aspect is not directly affecting the Comfortability descriptor. It means that a noisy acoustic conditionin the urban environment does not necessarily make the space perceived as uncomfortable. On theother hand, a vibrant and live acoustic environment was indirectly affecting the Comfortability
descriptor through the Dynamicity descriptor where for urban public space a vibrant acoustic
environment is preferred. This result shows an agreement with Bruce and Davies research about the
expectation of sound and how it affects the soundscape perception (18). İn this case, since the visitorof urban public space have an expectation of a crowd visiting the space, a vibrant sound is expected
and thus make urban space still deemed comfortable for them even though the noise level might be
high.

Figure 2 - Model of multi-sensory comfortability in outdoor urban public space

4. CONCLUSIONSThis research using an internet-based questionnaire to find the main perception that is expected in
the urban outdoor public space and find the multisensory relationship in that perception. Three main
components with an acceptable and good reliability Cronbach's Alpha score were found namely
Comfortability, Age, and Spatial. Visual and thermal perception were both found affecting theperception of comfort. The acoustic condition, even though it is not directly affecting the comfort
perception, it is highly affecting the perception of dynamicity in the urban area together with visual
perception. This result shows a preliminary relationship between multisensory perception in the urban
public space area. Further research on these findings will be performed with a comparison to theobjective measurement of the physical aspects in order to fully understand the multisensory behavior
in outdoor urban public space.

7944

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This research is funded by Institut Teknologi Bandung Research Scheme.

REFERENCES
1. Krenichyn K. “The only place to go and be in the city”: women talk about exercise, being outdoors, andthe meanings of a large urban park. Heal Place. 2006;12(4):631–43.
2. Payne SRS. Urban Park Soundscapes and Their Perceived Restorativeness. In: Proceedings of theInstitute of Acoustics & Belgium Acoustical Society [Internet]. Ghent; 2010. p. 264–71. Available from:http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/47717/1/WRAP_Payne_urban park soundscapes.pdf
3. Goličnik B, Thompson CW. Emerging relationships between design and use of urban park spaces.
Landsc Urban Plan. 2010;94(1):38–53.
4. McCormack GR, Rock M, Toohey AM, Hignell D. Characteristics of urban parks associated with parkuse and physical activity: A review of qualitative research. Heal Place [Internet]. 2010;16(4):712–26.
Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.healthplace.2010.03.003
5. Nikolopoulou M, Lykoudis S, Kikira M. Thermal comfort in outdoor spaces: field studies in Greece.
Proc fifth Int Conf urban Clim Lodz. 2003;1–5.
6. Stathopoulos T, Wu H, Zacharias J. Outdoor human comfort in an urban climate. Build Environ.
2004;39(3):297–305.
7. Yang W, Kang J. Acoustic comfort evaluation in urban open public spaces. Appl Acoust.
2005;66(2):211–29.
8. Shams L, Kim R. Crossmodal influences on visual perception. Vol. 7, Physics of Life Reviews. 2010. p.
269–84.
9. Pheasant RJ, Fisher MN, Watts GR, Whitaker DJ, Horoshenkov K V. The importance of auditory-visualinteraction in the construction of ‘ tranquil space .’ J Environ Psychol. 2010;30:501–9.
10. Van Renterghem T, Botteldooren D. View on outdoor vegetation reduces noise annoyance for dwellers
near busy roads. Landsc Urban Plan [Internet]. 2016;148:203–15. Available from:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2015.12.018
11. Bjerre L, Santurette S, Jeong C. thermal comfort and soundscape internoise.pdf. 2013;3613–20.
12. Engel MS, Paas B, Schneider C, Pfaffenbach C, Fels J. Investigation of the relationship between
acoustic perception and thermal comfort of an urban park in Aachen Investigation of the relationshipbetween acoustic perception and thermal comfort of an urban park in Aachen. 2018;(March):2–6.
13. Lin TP, Tsai KT, Hwang RL, Matzarakis A. Quantification of the effect of thermal indices and sky view
factor on park attendance. Landsc Urban Plan [Internet]. 2012;107(2):137–46. Available from:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2012.05.011
14. Chau CK. Investigating the Effects of Greenery on Temperature and Thermal Comfort in Urban Parks.
2016.
15. Jeon JY, Hong JY, Lee PJ. Soundwalk approach to identify urban soundscapes individually. J Acoust
Soc Am. 2013;134:803–12.
16. Nguyen TA, Semidor C. Relationship between urban activities and soundscape : commercial areas in
Bordeaux and Hanoi. In: The 23rd Conference on Passive and Low Energy Architecture. Geneva; 2006.
p. 6–8.
17. Liu F, Kang J. Relationship between street scale and subjective assessment of audio-visual environment
comfort based on 3D virtual reality and dual-channel acoustic tests. Build Environ [Internet].
2018;129(November 2017):35–45. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2017.11.040
18. Bruce NS, Davies WJ. The effects of expectation on the perception of soundscapes. Appl Acoust[Internet]. 2014;85:1–11. Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apacoust.2014.03.016
19. Sudarsono AS, Nitidara NPA, Sarwono J, Martokusumo W, Poerbo HW, Djimantoro M, et al. The
implementation of text mining in the study of the perception of the urban area. In: The 4th International
Conference on Indonesian Architecture and Planning. 2018.
20. Kang, Zhang. Semantic differential analysis on the soundscape of urban open public spaces. J Acoust
Soc
Am[Internet].
2002;112(5):2435.
Availablefrom:
http://scitation.aip.org/content/asa/journal/jasa/112/5/10.1121/1.4779999
21. Sudarsono AS, Lam YW, Davies WJ. Soundscape Perception Analysis Using Soundscape Simulator. In:
Internoise 2016. Hamburg; 2016. p. 6868–75.

7945