## 3 Results
### Classifying Research Sites Based on Perceived Soundscape Attributes  
3.2.1. Descriptive Analysis of Site Visual and Aural Attributes  
Visual and aural evaluation results of research sites (Table 3) were represented by calculating the average of the questionnaire responses collected at each route.  
The visual attributes of the five research sites were almost all rated at a good level, with UGS2 ranking highest, followed by UGS3, UGS4, UGS5 and UGS1. UGS2 was evaluated as the most aesthetic (4.00) among the five UGSs and also had relatively higher ratings on the other three visual indicators. USG4 had the greatest level of openness (4.32), while its layering (3.52) and order (3.43) were perceived to be generally weak. The landscape with the best level of layering was UGS3 (3.85), which also rated highly on the other three visual attributes (Table 3, Figure 2).  
In terms of aural characteristics, the differences among the five sites were quite evident. In general, the aural evaluation results present a similar ranking to the visual landscape, with UGS2 rated as the best and USG1 as the worst. The acoustic environment in UGS2 was perceived as the most vibrant (3.69), but it also provided people with fairly harmonious aural experiences. UGS3 is prominent in its eventualness (3.40) and harmonious (4.00) characteristics, while its vibrancy (2.81) and calmness (2.85) of sounds are relatively weak. USG1, UGS4 and UGS5 presented similar evaluation results on aural attributes, both having the highest ratings in appropriateness and the lowest in calmness (Table 3, Figure 2).  
Comparing the visual and aural attributes, a good level of visual characteristics and a good level of aural features could normally be observed to appear together. Therefore, UGS2 had the highest ratings and UGS1 had the lowest ratings on both the visual and  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c} \hline \hline
**Indicators** & & **UGS1** & **UGS2** & **UGS3** & **UGS4** & **UGS5** \\ \hline \multirow{2}{*}{Aesthetic (V1)} & Mean & 3.35 & 4.00 & 3.85 & 3.84 & 3.75 \\  & Std.Dev & 0.94 & 0.84 & 0.81 & 0.71 & 0.91 \\ \hline \multirow{2}{*}{Openness (V2)} & Mean & 3.76 & 4.06 & 3.77 & 4.32 & 3.53 \\  & Std.Dev & 1.05 & 0.95 & 0.87 & 0.86 & 1.01 \\ \hline \multirow{2}{*}{Layering (V3)} & Mean & 3.38 & 3.78 & 3.85 & 3.52 & 3.47 \\  & Std.Dev & 0.93 & 1.04 & 0.88 & 0.90 & 1.01 \\ \hline \multirow{2}{*}{Order (V4)} & Mean & 3.37 & 3.78 & 3.75 & 3.43 & 3.84 \\  & Std.Dev & 0.98 & 1.07 & 1.11 & 0.79 & 0.88 \\ \hline \multirow{2}{*}{Vibrancy (A1)} & Mean & 3.01 & 3.69 & 2.81 & 3.34 & 3.14 \\  & Std.Dev & 1.01 & 0.97 & 1.06 & 1.03 & 1.04 \\ \hline \multirow{2}{*}{Calm (A2)} & Mean & 1.81 & 2.31 & 2.85 & 2.23 & 2.61 \\  & Std.Dev & 0.97 & 1.12 & 1.26 & 1.12 & 1.22 \\ \hline \multirow{2}{*}{Eventfulness (A3)} & Mean & 2.88 & 3.25 & 3.40 & 3.36 & 3.43 \\  & Std.Dev & 1.09 & 1.11 & 0.95 & 1.22 & 1.04 \\ \hline \multirow{2}{*}{Appropriateness (A4)} & Mean & 3.15 & 3.97 & 4.00 & 3.95 & 3.45 \\  & Std.Dev & 0.89 & 0.65 & 0.68 & 0.89 & 0.81 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table}
Table 3: The arithmetic averages of perceptive evaluations in the five study sites.  
aural aspects. Furthermore, though all five study sites provided a calm soundscape, people's perception of the visual landscape was generally better than that of the acoustic environment (Table 3, Figure 2).