Research Article

Multisensory Assessment of Acoustic Comfort Aboard Metros: a Virtual Reality Study

  1. Tina Iachini1,*,
  2. Luigi Maffei2,
  3. Francesco Ruotolo1,
  4. Vincenzo Paolo Senese1,
  5. Gennaro Ruggiero1,
  6. Massimiliano Masullo2,
  7. Natalia Alekseeva2

Article first published online: 4 JUL 2012

DOI: 10.1002/acp.2856

Issue

Applied Cognitive Psychology

Applied Cognitive Psychology

Volume 26, Issue 5, pages 757–767, September/October 2012

Additional Information

How to Cite

Iachini, T., Maffei, L., Ruotolo, F., Senese, V. P., Ruggiero, G., Masullo, M. and Alekseeva, N. (2012), Multisensory Assessment of Acoustic Comfort Aboard Metros: a Virtual Reality Study. Appl. Cognit. Psychol., 26: 757–767. doi: 10.1002/acp.2856

Author Information

  1. 1

    Department of Psychology, Laboratory of Cognitive Science and Immersive Virtual Reality, Second University of Naples, Caserta, Italy

  2. 2

    Built Environment Control laboratory R.I.A.S., Second University of Naples, Aversa (CE), Italy

* Tina Iachini, PhD, Department of Psychology, Second University of Naples, Via Vivaldi, 43, 81100 Caserta, Italy.
E-mail: santa.iachini@unina2.it

Publication History

  1. Issue published online: 17 SEP 2012
  2. Article first published online: 4 JUL 2012
  3. Manuscript Accepted: 12 JUN 2012
  4. Manuscript Revised: 8 JUN 2012
  5. Manuscript Received: 27 OCT 2011

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Summary

In this study, a multisensory methodology is used to assess acoustic comfort aboard different real-world metros by means of subjective annoyance and cognitive performance measures. Two experimental conditions were compared: unimodal versus bimodal. Immersive virtual reality was used to simulate journeys aboard metro coaches. Participants performed four tasks (Rey Test, Verbal Fluency, Backward Counting and Auditory Words Discrimination) while listening to metro sounds (unimodal condition) or while listening to metro sounds within a virtual metro coach (bimodal condition). At the end of each journey, participants reported their degree of noise annoyance. The results showed that cognitive performances were worse in the bimodal than in the unimodal condition. Moreover, the bimodal condition affected negatively the capacity to discriminate words and to count backward. However, reported noise annoyance was higher in the unimodal than bimodal condition. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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