MODELOS PREDOMINANTES EN LA

There has been a very small amount of acoustics-based soundscape papers using Grounded Theory (GT). GT will be covered in more detail in the Methodology chapter with regards to its use in this thesis. Schulte-Fortkamp and Fiebig (2006) use GT to analyse people's reactions to a particular street in Berlin.

While there are plural denitions of Grounded Theory, I struggle to understand how it has been applied on an epistemological level given the references in the paper. A diagram on page 876 shows `open coding' feeding into `categories' feeding into `core categories', feeding into an `integrative diagram', feeding back into `open coding'. GT is not usually cyclical

in this way codes, concepts, categories (presumably `categories' and `core categories' in this interpretation) and theories are not cyclical: they feed up and down a linear path. Usually iterative diagrams are not tested with further open coding, as the paper claims: open coding is the process by which new categories are discovered.

While it is possible this application of GT developed during the project, these abnormal claims and applications are not justied in the paper. In addition, `theoretical sampling' is cited as the method of selecting participants, adding that this process resulted in them picking solely a group of long-term local residents. This seems both a category error (`the- oretical sampling' is what you do with the data, not the people), and a misinterpretation of the point of the process (Glaser and Strauss suggest that interviewees change depending on what is needed to be found out). Finally, there is a confusion between method and methodology referring to the analysis process as methodology, which it is not.

The key error in this paper in my view seems to be the lack of a clear research question, or list of aims. Equally, the denition of soundscape in this paper is that soundscape can be understood as the mediator between humans, their activities and their environment (p875), an unclear statement which, despite citing Schafer, is not a denition that is in any common use. This lack of epistemological direction is something common to both qualitative and quantitative research in my analysis however, as mentioned in the literature review. The interview schedule seems poorly justied.

• contentment with apartment and building structure • noise conditions inside the house/apartment

• noise report

• routine of daily life

• nature of the experience with public transportation • spatial orientation of synergistic noise inuence

• evaluation of noises by means of scaling (5 point scale) (Schulte-Fortkamp and

Fiebig, 2006, p877)

Perhaps phrases like spatial orientation of synergistic noise inuence are simply poorly translated, or open-questioning prompts which were not directly asked to the respondent, but I am unsure how lay people are to interpret of the majority of these points. Routine of daily life and contentment with apartment are easy to answer, but what do they actually say about the soundscape? What is a noise report? If these were not asked directly, then how were they asked? The object under study is not dened: for example, I am arguing it is the listener, whereas this paper switches perspective several times. The methodology seems to be measuring a space in this case, a cobbled city street rather than measuring a person: reinforced by the spectograms and 5-point scales, whose methodological contribution seems not to be justied. The end conclusion seems to be that removing the cobbled road surface would improve people's soundscape perception. This seems like a fairly exhaustive piece of research to arrive at a conclusion that could be accessed in a much simpler way.

The eventual evaluation model of Schulte-Fortkamp and Fiebig (2006, p877) is shown in Figure 2.2 on the next page. While they do state that the depicted arrows in the model do not characterise a changeless, linear direction the dierent internal processes take place simultaneously and are complex (p879), one wonders why they did add directional arrows; nevertheless there is a lot of interest here. In keeping with my critique of the lack of clear research question, I wonder for whom this evaluation model is designed. Acoustical setting and source identication are the realm of acoustics and psychoacoustics respectively. Disposition is mysteriously outside the category internal negation process, as is psychological reactions, and I am unsure what these are if not internal processes. While social-cultural background is added as a nod to the social context of this research, none of the factors have links showing how they are related.

Actions, strategies however is an interesting category, and gives the rst insight in this body of research into how laypeople negotiate desirable or undesirable soundscapes, using

strategies from protecting ones they like to escaping ones they do not, although it is unspecic as to how. As a list of factors aecting soundscape perception though, the contents of the top three blocks are all reasonable, and useful. They conclude that the qualitative data analysis shows that the sound evaluations depend on the social and cultural structures in which the individual is inbedded [sic]. It is a reaction to a stimulus, but the reaction is not predetermined, it is learned and it depends on the way people accept those who expose them to the noise, giving a few examples of how this can happen (p879). This conclusion I can resoundingly support.

I have presented an especially critical analysis of this paper. This is not because it has problems which other acoustics papers do not: but that, in attempting a qualitative approach without letting go of the familiarity and cultural apparatus of the quantitative, it has ended up doing neither eectively. There seems some resistance between methodology and methods, which is common to many papers in my analysis: traditional soundscape methodologies are being used without thorough examination to answer a radically dierent research question.

A more fruitful approach was attempted by Dubois et al. (2006), who used a psycho- linguistic approach to produce cognitive auditory categories. This paper (in the same volume) in contrast to the previous one, has many clear statements about goals and epistemology. They categorise most soundscape research as follows.

Within the psychophysical paradigm:

• stimuli are described as dimensions and parameters established by

natural sciences

• answers are collected using closed data collection instruments within a

priori categories also given by the natural sciences

• answers are processed using quantitative data analysis of qualitative

judgements (Dubois et al., 2006, p866, original emphasis)

Two clear research aims are identied in the paper as being the goals of the CRESSON research group.

• how [do] people give meaning to urban soundscapes on the basis of their everyday

experience? (psychology)

• how [are] individual assessments [. . . ] conveyed through language as collective

expressions? (linguistics) (p867)

A qualitative, phenomenological analysis follows, ending with several conclusions as to the nature of cognitive representations of acoustic phenomena. There are two key conclusions which aid my conguration: 1) it is an individual, non-observable subject-centered representation. 2) [It is] always experienced in context and in practices; therefore may not be unique, but diverse according to the diversity of subjects' experiences (p869). Therefore Dubois et al. are arguing for what, in any other words, is a phenomenological approach. They claim that cognitive soundscape response is non-observable and there- fore unsuitable in the rst instance for being recorded using acoustic measurements of any kind. It is always contextualised and responses are diverse therefore requiring a need to analyse dierence instead of averaging out listeners.

In conclusion, Dubois et al. state soundscapes should be conceived and investigated as `acts of meaning' to rst identify the relevant semantic features and further correlate them with quantitative parameters. They also point out that use of language is an objective measurement for measuring the physical world as experienced by listeners. In short: Dubois et al. argue that a phenomenological framework is required for progress in all aspects of soundscape research.