Alexander L. Sweger – swegeral@mail.uc.edu George W. Uetz – uetzgw@ucmail.uc.edu University of Cincinnati Department of Biological Sciences 2600 Clifton Ave, Cincinnati OH 45221
Popular version of paper 4pAB3, “the potential for acoustic communication in the ‘purring’ wolf spider’ Presented Thursday afternoon, May 21, 2015, 2:40 PM, Rivers room 169th ASA Meeting, Pittsburgh Click here to read the abstract
While we are familiar with a wide variety of animals that use sound to communicate- birds, frogs, crickets, etc.- there are thousands of animal species that use vibration as their primary means of communication. Since sound and vibration are physically very similar, the two are inextricable connected, but biologically they are still somewhat separate modes of communication. Within the field of bioacoustics, we are beginning to fully realize how prevalent vibration is as a mode of animal communication, and how interconnected vibration and sound are for many species.
Wolf spiders are one group that heavily utilizes vibration as a means of communication, and they have very sensitive structures for “listening” to vibrations. However, despite the numerous vibrations that are involved in spider communication, they are not known for creating audible sounds. While a lot of species that use vibration will simultaneously use airborne sound, spiders do not possess structures for hearing sound, and it is generally assumed that they do not use acoustic communication in conjunction with vibration.
The “purring” wolf spider (Gladicosa gulosa) may be a unique exception to this assumption. Males create vibrations when they communicate with potential mates in a manner very similar to other wolf spider species, but unlike other wolf spider species, they also create airborne sounds during this communication. Both the vibrations and the sounds produced by this species are of higher amplitude than other wolf spider species, both larger and smaller, meaning this phenomenon is independent of species size. While other acoustically communicating species like crickets and katydids have evolved structures for producing sound, these spiders are vibrating structures in their environment (dead leaves) to create sound. Since we know spiders do not possess typical “ears” for hearing these sounds, we are interested in finding out if females or other males are able to use these sounds in communication. If they do, then this species could be used as an unusual model for the evolution of acoustic communication.
Figure 1: An image of a male “purring” wolf spider, Gladicosa gulosa, and the spectrogram of his accompanied vibration. Listen to a recording of the vibration here,
and the accompanying sound here.
Our work has shown that the leaves themselves are vital to the use of acoustic communication in this species. Males can only produce the sounds when they are on a surface that vibrates (like a leaf) and females will only respond to the sounds when they are on a similar surface. When we remove the vibration and only provide the acoustic signal, females still show a significant response and males do not, suggesting that the sounds produced by males may play a part in communicating specifically with females.
So, the next question is- how are females responding to the airborne sound without ears? Despite the relatively low volume of the sounds produced, they can still create a vibration in a very thin surface like a leaf. This creates a complex method of communication- a male makes a vibration in a leaf that creates a sound, which then travels to another leaf and creates a new vibration, which a female can then hear. While relatively “primitive” compared to the highly-evolved acoustic communication in birds, frogs, insects, and other species, this unique usage of the environment may create opportunities for studying the evolution of sound as a mode of animal communication.
Brigitte Schulte-Fortkamp – b.schulte-fortkamp@tu-berlin.de Technical University Berlin Institute of Fluid Mechanics and Engineering Acoustics -Psychoacoustics and Noise effects – Einsteinufer 25 10587 Berlin -Germany
Popular version of paper 2aNSa1, “Soundscape as a resource to balance the quality of an acoustic environment” Tuesday morning, May 19, 2015, 8:35 AM, Commonwealth 1 169th ASA Meeting, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania
Preface Soundscape studies investigate and find increasingly better ways to measure and hone the acoustic environment. Soundscape offers the opportunity for multidisciplinary working, bringing together science, medicine, social studies and the arts – combined, crucially, with analysis, advice and feedback from the ‘users of the space’ as the primary ‘experts’ of any environment – to find creative and responsive solutions for protection of living places and to enhance the quality of life.
The Soundscape concept was introduced as a scope to rethink the evaluation of “noise” and its effects. The challenge was to consider the limits of acoustic measurements and to account for its cultural dimension.
The recent international standard ISO 12913-1 Acoustics — Soundscape —Part 1: Definition and conceptual framework Acoustique – Paysage sonore -Partie 1: Définition et cadre conceptual clarifies soundscape as an “acoustic environment as perceived or experienced and/or understood by a person or people, in context”
Figure 1 — Elements in the perceptual construct of soundscape
Soundscape suggests exploring noise in its complexity and its ambivalence and its approach towards sound to consider the conditions and purposes of its production, perception, and evaluation, to understand evaluation of noise/ sound as a holistic approach.
To discuss the contribution of Soundscape research into the area of Community noise research means to focus on the meaning of sounds and its implicit assessments to contribute to the understanding that the evaluation through perceptual effects is a key issue.
Using the resources – an example- Soundscape Approach Public Space Perception and Enhancement Drawing on Experience in Berlin Figure 2 – Soundscape Nauener Platz
The concept of development of the open pace relies on the understanding that people living in the chosen are the “real” experts concerning the evaluation of this place according to their expectations and experiences in the respective area. The intention of scientific research here is to learn about the meaning of the noise with respect to people’s living situation and to implement the adequate procedure to open the “black box” of people’s mind.
Therefore, the aim was to get residents involved through workshops to get access to the different social groups. Figure 3 – Participation and Collaboration Figure 4 – The concept of evaluation
Interdisciplinarity is considered as a must in the soundscape approach. In this case it was concerned with the collaboration of architects, acoustics engineers, environmental health specialists, psychologists, social scientists, and urban developers. The tasks are related to the local individual needs and are open to noise sensitive and other vulnerable groups. It is also concerned with cultural aspects and the relevance of natural soundscapes – sometimes referred to as quiet areas – which is obviously related to the highest level of needs. Figure 5 – Soundscape – an interactive approach using the resources
Improving local soundscape quality? Obviously, these new approaches and methods make it possible to learn about the process of perception and evaluation sufficiently as they take into account the context, ambiance, the usual interaction between noise and listener and the multidimensionality of noise perception.
By contrast, conventional methods often reduce the complexity of reality on controllable variables, which supposedly represent the scrutinized object. Furthermore, traditional tests neglect frequently the context-dependency of human perception; they only provide artificial realities and diminish the complexity of perception on merely predetermined values, which do not completely correspond with perceptual authenticity. However, perception and evaluations entirely depend on the respective influences of the acoustic and non-acoustic modifiers.
Following the comments and group discussion and also the results from the narrative interviews it could be defined why people prefer some places over the public place and why not. It also became clear how people experience the noise in the distance from the road and also with respect to social life and social control. One of the most important findings here is how people react to low frequency noise at the public place and how experiences and expectations work together. It becomes obvious that the most wanted sound in this area is based on wishes to escape the road traffic noise through natural sounds. Figure 6 – Selected sounds for audio islands
Reshaping the place based on people’s expertise Relying on the combined evaluation procedures the place was reshaped installing a gabion wall along one of the main roads and further more audio islands like have been built that integrated the sounds people would like to enjoy when using the place. While the gabion wall protects against noise around the playground, the new installed audio islands provide nature sounds as selected by the people involved in the Soundscape approach. Figure 7 – Installation of the sounds
Conclusions Figure 8 – The new place
The process of tuning of urban areas with respect to the expertise of people’s mind and quality of life is related to the strategy of triangulation and provides the theoretical frame with regard to the solution of e.g. the change in an area. In other words: Approaching the field in this holistic manner is generally needed.
An effective and sustainable reduction of the number of highly annoyed people caused by noise is only possible with further scientific endeavors in the area of methods development and research of noise effects. Noise maps providing further information can help to obtain a deeper understanding of noise reactions and can help to reliably identify perception-related hot spots. Psychoacoustic maps are particularly interesting in areas where the noise levels are marginal below the noise level limits and offer an additional interpretation help with respect to the identification of required noise abatement measures.
But, the expertise of people involved will provide meaningful information. Soundwalks as an eligibly instrument for exploring urban areas by minds of the “local experts” as measuring device open a field of data for triangulation. These techniques in combination allow giving meaning to the numbers and values of recordings and their analysis to understand the significance of sound and noise as well as the perception of Soundscapes by its resources. tags: soundscape, acoustics, people, health
REFERENCES J. Kang, B. Schulte-Fortkamp (editors) Soundscape and the Built Environment CRC Press | Taylor & Francis Group, in print B. Schulte-Fortkamp, J. Kang (editors) Special Issue on Soundscape, JASA 2012 R. M. Schafer, “The Soundscape. Our sonic environment and the tuning of the world.” Rochester, Vermont: Destiny Books, (1977). B. Hollstein, “Qualitative approaches to social reality: the search for meaning” in: John Scott & Peter J. Carrington (Eds.): Sage handbook of social network analysis. London/Newe Dehli: Sage. (2012) R. M. Schafer, “The Book of Noise” (Price Milburn Co., Lee, Wellington, NZ, (1973). B. Truax, (ed.) „Handbook for Acoustic Ecology” (A.R.C. Publication, Vancouver, (1978). K. Hiramatsu, “Soundscape: The Concept and Its Significance in Acoustics,” Proc. ICA, Kyoto, 2004. A. Fiebig, B. Schulte-Fortkamp, K. Genuit, „New options for the determination of environmental noise quality”, 35th International Congress and Exposition on Noise Control Engineering INTER-NOISE 2006, 04.-06.December 2006, Honolulu, HI. P. Lercher, B. Schulte-Fortkamp, “Soundscape and community noise annoyance in the context of environmental impact assessments,” Proc. INTER-NOISE 2003, 2815-2824, (2003). B. Schulte-Fortkamp, D. Dubois: (editors) Acta Acustica united with Acustica, Special Issue, Recent advances in Soundscape research, Vol 92 (6), (2006). R. Klaboe, et. al. „Änderungen in der Klang- und Stadtlandschaft nach Änderung von Straßenverkehrsstraßen im Stadtteil Oslo-Ost“, Fortschritte der Akustik, Oldenburg, (2000).
The impact of auralization on design decisions for the House of Commons
Ronald Eligator – religator@ad-ny.com Acoustic Distinctions, Inc. 145 Huguenot Street New Rochelle, NY 10801
Popular version of paper 1pAA1 Presented Monday morning, October 27, 2014 168th ASA Meeting, Indianapolis
If the MP’s speeches don’t put you to sleep, at least you should be able to understand what they are saying.
Using state-of-the-art audible simulations, a design team of acousticians, architects and sound system designers is working to ensure that speech within the House of Commons chamber of the Parliament of Canada now in design will be intelligible in either French or English.
The new chamber for the House of Commons is being built in a glass-topped atrium in the courtyard of the West Block building on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. The chamber will be the temporary home of the House of Commons, while their traditional location in the Center Block building is being renovated and restored.
The skylit atrium in the West Block will be about six times the volume of the existing room, resulting in significant challenges for ensuring speech will be intelligibility.
Figure 1: Existing Chamber of the House of Commons, Parliament of Canada
The existing House chamber is 21 meters (70 feet) long, 16 meters (53 feet) wide, and has seats for the current 308 Members of Parliament (to increase to 338 in 2015) and 580 people in the upper gallery that runs around the second level of the room. Most surfaces are wood, although the floor is carpeted, and there is an adjustable curtain at the rear of the MP seating area on both sides of the room. The ceiling is a painted stretched linen canvas over the ceiling 14.7 meters (48.5 feet) above the commons floor, resulting in a room volume of approximately 5000 cubic meters.
The new House chamber is being infilled into an existing courtyard that is 44 meters (145 feet) long, 39 meters (129 feet) wide, and 18 meters (59 feet) high. The meeting space itself will retain the same basic footprint as the existing room, including the upper gallery seating, but will be open to the sound reflective glass roof and stone and glass side walls of the courtyard. In the absence of any acoustic treatments, the high level of reverberant sound would make it very difficult to understand speech in the room.
RCOP / FGM ARCHITECTS
Figure 2: Early Design Rendering of Chamber in West Block
In order to help the Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC) and the House of Commons understand the acoustic differences between the existing house chamber and the one under design, and to assure them that excellent speech intelligibility will be achieved in the new chamber, Acoustic Distinctions, the New York-based acoustic consultant, created a computer model of both the new and existing house chambers, and performed acoustic tests in the existing chamber. AD also made comparisons of the two room using sophisticated data analysis and tables of data an produced graphs maps of speech intelligibility in each space.
An early design iteration, for example, included significant areas of sound absorptive materials at the sides of the ceiling areas, as well as sound absorptive materials integrated into the branches of the tree-like structure which supports the roof:
ACOUSTIC DISTINCTIONS
Figure 3: Computer Model of Room Finishes
The dark areas of the image show the location of sound absorptive materials, including triangularly-shaped wedges integrated into the structure which supports the roof.
Using a standardized measure of intelligibility, AD estimated a speech quality of 65% using the Speech Transmission Index (STI), a standardized measure of speech intelligibility, where a minimum of 75% was needed to ensure excellent intelligibility.
The computer analysis done by Acoustic Distinctions also produced colorful images relating to the degree of speech intelligibility that was to be expected:
Figure 4: Speech Transmission Index, single person speaking, no reinforcement (Talker at lower left; Listener at lower right) Dark blue to black color indicates fair to good intelligibility
Figure 5: Speech Transmission Index, single person speaking, with sound reinforcement (Talker at upper left; Listener at lower right) Bright pink to red color indicates excellent intelligibility
Not surprisingly, communicating this to the design team and House of Commons in a way that provided a high level of confidence in the results was required. We again used audible simulations to demonstrate the results:
Audio file 3: Speech with Sound System, reduced absorption. STI 0.82
The rendering below shows the space configuration associated with the latest results:
ARCOP / FGM ARCHITECTS
Figure 6: Rendering, House of Commons, West Block, Parliament Hill Proposed Design Configuration, showing sound absorptive panels integrated into laylight and structure supporting roof
