Evaluating the restorative quality of soundscapes in urban interior spaces through audio-visual interactions

In today's world, the spatial experience should reduce the user's stress levels and enable the user to establish a healthy connection with the space. The aim of this study is to examine the mental restoration features and quality of the soundscape in urban interior spaces by evaluating audio-visual interactions of perception. A case study was conducted based on the principles of restorative theory and the polyvagal theory in two selected urban interior spaces. An on-site survey was conducted with 92 randomly selected individuals. According to the findings, participants in green-dominant case evaluated the soundscape and visual scenery more positively compared to those in gray-dominant case. Participants in gray-dominant case perceived the soundscape and visual scenery as disturbing. Audio-visual elements showed parallelism in the user's spatial experience where, the results of users' audio-visual perception evaluations were consistent with each other. According to the average scores of the perceived restorativeness soundscape scale (PRSS), perceived restorativeness soundscape quality scores in green-dominant case were higher than those in gray-dominant case.