Silent Soundwalking: an urban pedestrian soundscape methodology

Acousticians have industriously devised and refined metrics for measuring and predicting human responses to environmental noise such as sons, phons, noys, NC, NR, dB(A) dB(C), Leq, Ldn, and when rigorously applied in ISO standards offer effective reproducibility and repeatability, but they fall short when it comes to charting the vicissitudes of everyday listening and the communication of that experience from the perspective of the individual. The explicitly heuristic method of soundwalking, in contrast can elicit insights into the human interrelationship with everyday soundscapes, be that affective, evaluative, strategic, habitual, semantic, cultural, social or aesthetic.