The study of perception in the urban environment presents certain specificities. For instance, the urban user in the city does not have a direct intention linked with sound or visual perception, unlike a concert which is to be listened to, or anexhibition which is to be watched. Because of this complexity, sound and visual urban environments are often studied without taking into consideration possible interactions between them. However, it is now well established that hearing and seeing interact and reinforce one another in a complex way (Woszczyk [4], 1995). Three authors have specifically carried out research about interactions between audition and vision in the city: Southworth (1969) [3], Anderson (1983) [1] and Caries (1992) [2]. The present research focuses on the influence of vision on audition in an urban context. It aims at assessing perception of the urban sound environment through a multidimensional approach, which takes into account the influence of visual information. Italso aims at discussing, developing and validating an experimental procedure suitable for testing audio-visual interactions in a complex sound environment such as the environment of cities. Two differential semantic tests have been organized: the first,implemented in situ in the natural environment, studied sound perception in a number of urban contexts, and the second, implemented with a simulation procedure, studies the influence of the degree of visual urbanization on sound perception.
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