Here is the abstract to my PhD thesis entitled "The effects of expectation on the perception of soundscapes", if you would like more information, please contact me directly. I will shortly be posting the introduction chapter.Abstract This thesis discusses how expectation is a contributory factor in the perception of soundscapes. “Soundscape” is a term attributed to R.Murray Schafer to define the acoustic environment, a recent ISO workgroup has proposed a formal definition as the “perception and understanding of an acoustic environment, in context, by the individual, or by a society” As such there is a move away from traditional acoustic methods of understanding environmental sound towards a more holistic, and interdisciplinary, approach to the sound environment. Previous soundscape research has identified the importance of semantic meaning attributed to soundscapes focusing on investigating linguistic and textual approaches of how people describe the soundscape. This thesis aims to extend the concept of meaning to give an insight into what particular soundscapes mean to people, and if this related to a predefined expectation based on context. This work expands Truax‟s notion of soundscape competence, and investigates how people perceive the soundscape. In particular how expectation of a particular space impacts on the perception of that space. This in turn addresses the issue of defining a context for a space and understanding how the soundscape is of importance to perception of spaces.The research which forms this work uses a number of interdisciplinary methods, from the fields of acoustics, social science and psychology, with the aim of developing a new qualitative and quantitative methodology for soundscape research. The work consists of qualitative fieldwork, and the development of a soundscape simulator in the laboratory. Through the use of an enhanced version of soundwalking, participants were asked questions aimed to analyse their pre-determined environmental expectation and their actual experience of a number of different spaces, and how this impacts on their perception and evaluation of the soundscape. The soundscape simulator was a tool by which participants could control and design their own soundscapes, whilst providing useful quantitative and qualitative data about choices made in the design process. Soundscape expectation is shown to relate not only to competence in perceiving the components of the soundscape but also to attitudes towards safety, social norms, accepted behaviour, visual aesthetics and control attributed to the space. Expectation based on competence forms the basis of place expectation or context, and relates to the overall perception of the soundscape for each space. When one or more of these factors conflict with a perceived place expectation, then perception of the soundscape becomes more important and impacts on the perception of the space. This work concludes that the meaning of a soundscape and its perception is related to an individual‟s expectation of the context of a space.Keywords : Soundscape, sound design, urban planning, expectation, competence, content, sound scapeCopyright 2011 Dr Neil Bruce - University of Salford
Criticism and happiness
Why do we do things that make us unhappy?
Hmmm this is a difficult one. I am stuck here, as I have been for several months (years) trying to finish my PhD thesis, and I am sat here wondering why am I going against everything I talk about on this blog, about turning around things that make us unhappy.
Now this is a really tricky one. I am a huge advocat of not doing something which makes us tragically unhappy....hey we only have one life right? But maybe sometimes we have to force ourselves to do things we don't want.....maybe time for some back story
How did I come to be doing a PhD in the first place, well on reflection, for all the wrong reasons. I hated my job, and I mean hated my job, I wanted to break free, I had realised there was more to life :) and an opportunity arose, to apply to do a PhD in a subject which was very dear to my heart. Given my age, career to that point and a variety of other factors, I knew that the descision was likely to go against me.....but...well it didn't! I had escaped my job, left my career behind and embarked on something new. I have learnt a lot during my journey, but ultimately we still end up sometimes being stuck with a lack of confidence. It is that which is really preventing me from finishing. The knowledge that no matter how hard I work, I am letting myself in for being criticised! So the lesson is accept that whatever you will do in life, you will be critised and the lesson is how you cope with the criticism, because ultimately the person critising you, the one who is making you feel unhappy (as I am now), is only doing it because they feel they have to, or to make them feel superior, or because the genuinely want to make your work better. Ultimately you will never know, but if you approach it with the attitude that it is to help you grow and move on then it might make you happier and less worried! It is what Seth Godin calls the lizard brain, conquer that and you will be free!!
(Note since I wrote this post, I have submitted my PhD and passed my viva!! It was worth it in the end!!)