applied sciences  
The Effect of a \"Design-of-Awareness\" Process on Recognition of AVAS Sound of Quiet Vehicles  
[PERSON], T., [PERSON], [PERSON], [PERSON], [PERSON] The Effect of a \"Design-of-Awareness\" Process on Recognition of AVAS Sound of Quiet Vehicles.  
spectrum, and frequency shift of the sounds. To improve awareness of the AVAS sounds of quiet vehicles, various studies have been conducted internationally [3,7,8]. [PERSON] et al. [9] conducted a sound detection experiment regarding the AVAS sounds of quiet vehicles with blind and visually impaired participants. The results revealed that a hybrid electric vehicle was detected by blind participants at a shorter distance and with less time to avoid a collision compared with traditional ICE vehicles traveling at slow speeds. In addition, [PERSON] et al. [10] reported that EV/HVs were detected at significantly shorter distances by visually impaired participants relative to ICE vehicles when traveling at 10 km/h. Moreover, although mean detection distances tended to be higher for quiet vehicles with an AVAS sound, it was not significantly different from the detection distances for traditional EVs at speeds of 10 km/h. These results indicate that an easier-to-detect AVAS sound needs to be developed. However, there are many issues that need to be addressed, such as the balance between understandability and maintaining non-noisy characteristics, and the requirement that the sound not be masked by background noise. Regarding the driver's perspective, [PERSON] [11] reported that noise-related concerns among EV drivers diminished with increasing driving experience. These findings suggest that improving pedestrians' awareness of quiet vehicles is important to avoid accidents. On the basis of these reports, the development of approaches for improving people's recognition and attitudes toward the AVAS sound of quiet vehicles may be helpful for improving awareness of these vehicles. [PERSON] [12] suggested an approach for addressing this issue on the basis of the soundscape proposed by [PERSON] [13]. [PERSON] also proposed a sound education program that was based on the concept of a soundscape [14]. In this sound education program, some activities such as soundwalking (walking through any environment without talking, focusing our listening on every sound around us) were proposed for training people in \"hearing techniques\", with opportunities being provided to listen to sounds that exist in the environment in their daily lives [14]. The positive effects of sound education have been widely reported, particularly in the field of education [15,16]. On the basis of the sound education concept and these previous findings, we hypothesized that providing people with the opportunity to recognize and hear the AVAS sounds of quiet vehicles could change people's attitudes toward the sounds and improve their ability to recognize them. We named this process \"design-of-awareness\". To verify this hypothesis and clarify the effects of the design-of-awareness process regarding the AVAS sound of quiet vehicles, we conducted two experiments. To investigate the issues regarding the quietness of EV/HEVs, the experiments were conducted in a quiet area at low speed so that the vehicle's ICE would not engage and thereby generate engine sound. In addition, we investigated the sounds that people actually heard and used to recognize the approach of quiet vehicles in daily life, including the AVAS sound.