The Meaning of Annoyance in Relation to the Quality of Acoustic Environments.

A supportive environment should take care of health. It is an environment that provides complete physical, mental and social well-being. It is not suffiently characterized by infirmity or the absence of disease. It should trigger good feelings and safety (WHO, 2000). Interdisciplinary procedures are needed that include acoustics, physics, psychology, and sociology when a survey on perception of acoustic environments is carried out under the aspect of comfort. It is necessary to combine methods with different sensibilities in order to measure the subjective perception of noise in such an environment. The context, the focus of attention, and the knowledge of past experiences must be taken into account. (Ipsen, 2001) These three conditions are required to implement an adequate measurement. Subject-centred methodological procedures should be used to develop a suitable measurement procedure. Such procedures will be presented with the aim to improve social surveys that especially address the meaning of annoyance in an acoustic environment and the contribution of a soundscape.