Cognitive persistence of soundscape in urban parks

Cognition of soundscape information affects an individual's preference and understanding soundscapes in urban parks. This study explored the cognitive persistence of soundscape and the factors that influence cognitive soundscape in urban parks. Landscape information was collected at 36 observation sites in three parks. The duration of soundscape samples at each site heard by the observers were divided into 10 s, 20 s, and 30 s. The observers in different groups were required to start filling out the questionnaire following the different time. Principle Component Analysis (PCA) produced three principal components of cognitive soundscape, loudness cognition, harmonious cognition, and directional cognition. Three hierarchical Cluster Analyses contributed to finding the variation characteristics of the factors from PCA in different intervals. A model using Artificial Neural Network (ANN) provided a prediction of cognitive soundscape attenuation. Results indicate that the optimal cognitive persistence of soundscape is 20 s to maintain the cognitive soundscape, and the influencing factors include soundscape and lightscape. The classified indicators from PCA were more effective in forecasting than those that were unclassified after ANN training. Overall, the soundscape, lightscape, and space together play a key role in the cognitive persistence of soundscape.