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Analysis of covariance with adjusted means 1 for geophony, biophony, and anthrophony preference among specialization segments
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Soundscapes have become recognized as an important natural resource. The traditional human-made versus natural soundscape comparison currently used in recreational resource management is challenged by borrowing soundscape components (i.e., biophony, anthrophony, geophony) from soundscape ecology. This article evaluated the soundscape preference of...
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Citations
... wind and water), human-made sounds (traffic and conversation), and biological sounds (e.g. animals) (Axelsson et al., 2010;Miller et al., 2014). Thus, different types of visitor attractions have distinct soundscapes due to the variations in their physical and environmental characteristics. ...
... Subsequently, scholars shifted towards a more subject-centered representation and suggested that urban soundscapes can be categorized according to their functional characteristics, such as traffic lights, coffee shops, pedestrian areas, and gardens (Raimbault & Dubois, 2005). Miller et al. (2014) grouped the sources of soundscape into three main categories, including (1) biophony, or sounds produced by animals, (2) anthrophony, or sounds associated with human activities, and (3) geophony, or sounds generated by natural phenomena. Nevertheless, a soundscape represents the ambiance or acoustic context encompassing a mix of various sources of sound events (Axelsson et al., 2010). ...
This study investigates and compares the effects of both subjective and objective soundscapes on visitors’ emotional responses and stickiness (i.e. their intention to stay) toward an attraction. Following the soundwalk approach, this study utilizes sound level meters and questionnaires to measure the objective and subjective soundscapes, respectively. The results indicate that subjective soundscape encompasses three dimensions, namely pleasant, unpleasant, and uneventful, which influence visitor stickiness. Moreover, both positive and negative emotions mediate the effects of subjective soundscape on visitors’ stickiness. The findings provide insights into the evaluation of soundscapes in visitor attractions and guide their design and management.
Free eprint is available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/VRCBJPRTVNYNNMPVCDQA/full?target=10.1080/10941665.2024.2333479
... Soundscape is described in the ISO as 'acoustic environment as perceived or experienced and/or understood by a person or people, in context' [20]. In urban forested areas, natural soundscape is considered a dominant type as it performs in natural sound occurrences [21], perceived geophony and biophony [22], and birdsong identification [23]. Exposure to the biophilic outdoor environment contributes to health and recovery, and is applied especially in forest-based health care [24]. ...
Natural soundscape is considered a dominant type of hearing in forested areas and contributes to health and recovery effects from exposure to the biophilic outdoor environment. This study focuses on the different forest structures, and aims to explore the relationship between perceived soundscape and acoustical parameters, observe physiological indicators, and model the physiological restorative role of soundscape. Questionnaires and measuring equipment were used to gather psychophysical and physiological information at 20 observation sites in urban forested areas. Back-propagation neural network techniques were conducted to determine the forecasting model from psychophysical to physiological parameters. Our results suggested that LAeq and L10 are important factors that influence questionnaire responses. Our findings also showed that electromyogram (EMG) signals were the most obvious and sensitive in physiological parameters. Additionally, we found that L10–90 played the most important role among all physical parameters in the physiological restorativeness soundscape model. This can facilitate the understanding of the physiological restorative role of soundscape in different forest structures when proposing suitable forest-based health care strategies.
... Similar to participants that "specialize" in doing multiple activities instead of becoming experts in one (Kuentzel, 2001), the literature suggests that there are also wildlife watching tourism participants who specialize in watching multiple types of wildlife rather than becoming experts on one species group . Segmentation based on the recreation specialization framework have been applied to numerous studies on birdwatchers (see for example Cheung et al., 2017;Hvenegaard, 2002;Miller et al., 2014), and to a handful of studies on other forms of wildlife watching tourism (Bentz et al., 2016;). ...
... Although birdwatching often extends far beyond a hobby or pastime (Amundsen & Fisk, 2015), participants are increasingly a diverse group (Connell, 2009;Hvenegaard, 2002;Scott & Thigpen, 2003). Studies often classify birdwatchers based on their degree of recreation specialization Miller et al., 2014). Yet, studies on other forms of tourism show that motivational factors also influence participants' experiences, satisfaction and loyalty (Sato et al., 2018;Suhartanto et al., 2020). ...
... Numerous studies on birdwatching have applied classification based on recreation specialization (e. g. Cheung et al., 2017;Hvenegaard, 2002;Lee & Scott, 2004;Miller et al., 2014;Scott et al., 2005). According to this framework, participants can become more specialized and progress in e.g. ...
This dissertation contributes to the wildlife watching tourism literature by investigating which elements are important to participants’ overall experiences and how these elements can contribute to the desired outcomes and/or reduce the negative impacts of wildlife watching
tourism activities. Moreover, wild animals are unpredictable as main attractions, and attempts to make encounters more predictable often have negative impacts on the animals involved. Certain exploitative practices such as food provisioning and habituation are also illegal in many areas. Therefore, the thesis emphasizes how other elements than the actual target species encounters can enhance overall wildlife watching experiences, and results provide suggestions on how providers can facilitate high quality experiences while reducing negative impacts on wildlife. To achieve these goals, the thesis investigates participants’ main motivations, whether participant characteristics influence overall wildlife watching tourism experiences, destination loyalty and pro-environmental behavioral intentions, as well as which elements are important to participants during wildlife watching tourism activities. These issues were mainly investigated at Norwegian wildlife watching tourism destinations, and the thesis is a novel contribution to the literature on Norwegian wildlife watching tourism. The mixed methods research approach was adopted, and data collection was based on the convergent research design, in which different but complementary data on the same topic are obtained to investigate a research topic. Empirical results are based on participants surveys, participant observations, travel party interviews and digital content analysis.
This is a compilation thesis, which consists of a synopsis and four research articles. The synopsis provides a snapshot of the main findings of the four papers, frames them theoretically
and discuss the overall findings as well as their practical implications and main theoretical contributions. Article 1 investigates participants’ main motivations to participate in wildlife watching tourism and links between motivational factors, overall satisfaction and destination
loyalty. Article 2 and Article 3 investigate which elements are important to participants during wildlife watching tourism experiences when the target species is encountered and when the target species is not encountered. Finally, Article 4 contributes to the discussion on wildlife
watching tourism’s potential to foster pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors among participants, by investigating the relationships between two of the concepts used to study this
issue: The theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1985) and involvement (Burke & Stets, 1999; Havitz & Dimanche, 1999), measured by centrality to life.
Findings underline that there are several elements of importance to a wildlife watching tourism experience besides the actual target species encounter and that it is, in some cases, possible for participants to have positive experiences even in the absence of their target species. Elements that were important to participant experiences included the natural surroundings, encounters with other wildlife in the area, secondary more guaranteed side experiences and guiding, which
was especially important both when the target species was encountered and when it was not encountered. Thus, findings indicate that providing high quality guiding should be a priority for
wildlife watching tourism providers. The other supporting elements became more important to participants in cases when the target species was not encountered, indicating that they are especially important to consider when the target species is considered difficult to encounter. Another key priority is expectations management, as findings indicate that participants who are warned that encounters are not guaranteed are more likely to remain positive towards the
wildlife watching activity provider in the absence of their target species. Additionally, findings indicate that participant characteristics influence overall experiences and at least two of the
desired outcomes of wildlife watching tourism: destination loyalty and intentions to perform pro-environmental actions after joining a wildlife watching tourism activity. Therefore, wildlife watching tourism providers and managers of areas that are rich in wildlife should carefully consider which participants they would like to reach when they implement marketing and communication strategies.
... Increasingly, research shows that natural sounds are an important component of visitor experiences (Francis et al., 2017;Mace et al., 2004). When considering the management of natural sounds, park and protected area managers generally focus on reducing human-caused sounds because they often detract from quality visitor experiences (Freimund et al., 2011;Miller et al., 2014;Pilcher et al., 2009). Considering the increasing scarcity of areas free from humancaused sound (Buxton et al., 2017), it is imperative that managers have science-informed strategies to address pervasive human-caused sounds in parks and protected areas. ...
In many parks and protected areas around the globe, reducing human-caused sounds is a critical component to providing quality visitor experiences. However, very little research examines the effect of vehicular road sounds on visitor experiences. Additionally, emerging pavement treatments have the potential to provide a new management tool for reducing impacts from vehicular road sounds. In this research, intercept surveys of visitors in Death Valley National Park and dose-response methods are used to identify the impacts of vehicular road sounds using normative concepts. The effects of different pavement treatments on visitor experiences are also evaluated. Results show that increasing vehicular road sounds have a negative impact on visitor experiences. Furthermore, Type II microsurfacing pavement treatments have a larger negative impact on visitor experiences than other pavement treatments. From this, managers of parks and protected areas can better understand the impacts of vehicle road sounds on visitor experiences, and possibly further reduce impacts through the use of pavement treatments.
... Empirical evidence reveals that birders, like recreationists enjoying other nature-based activities, are less worried about sites' infrastructure and care more about biodiversity and habitat quality (e.g., Guimarães et al. 2014;Steven et al. 2015), even if differences arise depending on the birder's level of specialization (Hvenegaard 2002). Many studies indicate that the level of specialization substantially influences the variability among groups of birders, not only in terms of the desired setting attributes but also in terms of awareness, knowledge, conservation attitudes, information used to determine site destination decisions, and behavioral attitudes and motivations (Cole and Scott 1999;Eubanks et al. 2004;Lessard et al. 2018;Maple et al. 2010;Miller et al. 2014;Scott and Thigpen 2003;Shipley et al. 2019). The level of specialization also affects the travel intention of birders, and the values they assign either to the entire recreation experience or the marginal values of destination attributes (De Salvo et al. 2020a;Lee et al. 2010). ...
A study based on discrete choice experiments is conducted to investigate how bioecological attributes of birding sites enter the utility functions of specialized birders and affect their travel intentions. Estimates are based on generalized multinomial and scales-adjusted latent class models. We find that the probability of observing a rare or a new bird species, and the numerosity of species significantly affect birders’ choice destination. We also find that individual preferences among attributes are correlated and affected by scale and taste heterogeneity. We identify two latent classes of birders. In the first class fall birders attaching a strong interest in qualitative aspects of sites and low importance on distance from home. Class 2 groups birders addicted both on all qualitative and quantitative bioecological attributes of sites as well as on the distance. In general, we assess that the majority of birders prefer to travel short distances, also when the goal is viewing rare or new birds. Finally, we estimate marginal welfare changes in biological attributes of sites in terms of willingness to travel.
... Thematic coding classified the 3 prevalent sounds perceived by participants within each of the acoustic environments (CNR, home, work), using the themes of geophonic, biophonic, and anthrophonic sounds to be consistent with existing acoustic [62,63] and PA research [24,[64][65][66]. The coding was completed separately by 3 investigators, who later compared their coding results in an effort to validate the process. ...
... However, recent work has suggested sound familiarity may be important to the restorative benefits that individuals gain from natural sounds [70]. Additionally, related concepts, including Experience Use History and Recreation Specialization Theory, have demonstrated that previous knowledge and understanding of a landscape can affect sound perceptions [65]. The attributes Axelsson et al. [23] identified as associated with familiarity included, "common", "commonplace", "real", and "familiar". ...
... Alternatively, familiarity may align with specialization theory; perhaps a developed interest and focus on particular natural sounds (e.g., a bird watcher's interest in particular bird calls) may increase visitors' soundscape familiarity ratings. Interactions between the three PAQ ratings also merit consideration; for example, as familiarity for specific bird calls increases through specialization, the pleasantness of other natural sounds like wind or water, which mask bird calls, may diminish [65]. ...
This study examined the potential for Perceived Affective Quality (PAQ; pleasantness, eventfulness, familiarity) soundscape measures developed within urban settings to enrich current soundscape management approaches within protected areas (PAs). Drawing on the premise that people bring experiences from other life contexts into PA settings and PA visitors are increasingly coming from urban areas, research integrated urban visitors’ soundscape perceptions of their home and work acoustic environments with their perceptions of acoustic environments in PAs. Two-phased survey research (n = 333) separated visitors into urban density groups and compared PAQ variables across home, work, and PA contexts. Significant differences resulted, both in ratings of the three acoustic contexts (PA, home, work) for all three PAQ components and between urban density groups. The importance of pleasantness was confirmed across all contexts; however, alone, this dimension lacked sufficient contrast to interpret the complexity of soundscape perceptions, especially considering diverse Healthy Parks, Healthy People (HPHP) visitor experience scenarios and goals. Thus, managers should consider (1) additional PAQ variables that can provide more useful and contrasting information; (2) incorporating methods that integrate PAQ measures across visitors’ different acoustic contexts, and (3) including urban density measures within HPHP research.
... Natural sounds enhance the quality of nature-based experiences [22] by adding to overall satisfaction [19,21,22], enhancing perceptions of natural landscapes [23] and improving mood [24]. In particular, birdsong is regarded by most people as enjoyable [20,21,[25][26][27], perhaps owing to its ubiquity throughout human evolution [28,29] or its association with forthcoming or current pleasant weather (i.e. spring and summer, respectively). ...
Spending time in nature is known to benefit human health and well-being, but evidence is mixed as to whether biodiversity or perceptions of biodiver- sity contribute to these benefits. Perhaps more importantly, little is known about the sensory modalities by which humans perceive biodiversity and obtain benefits from their interactions with nature. Here, we used a ‘phan- tom birdsong chorus’ consisting of hidden speakers to experimentally increase audible birdsong biodiversity during ‘on’ and ‘off’ (i.e. ambient conditions) blocks on two trails to study the role of audition in biodiversity perception and self-reported well-being among hikers. Hikers exposed to the phantom chorus reported higher levels of restorative effects compared to those that experienced ambient conditions on both trails; however, increased restorative effects were directly linked to the phantom chorus on one trail and indirectly linked to the phantom chorus on the other trail through perceptions of avian biodiversity. Our findings add to a growing body of evidence linking mental health to nature experiences and suggest that audi- tion is an important modality by which natural environments confer restorative effects. Finally, our results suggest that maintaining or improving natural soundscapes within protected areas may be an important component to maximizing human experiences.
... The sounds identified by participants during their listening activities were opencoded, following methods outlined by Elliott and Timulak (2005). Subsequently, sounds were attributed to sound categories; although some researchers have found value in using the three sound ecology categories that separate anthropological (human made), biological, and geological sounds (Chesnokova & Purnes, 2018;Miller et al., 2014), other researchers have classified according to a simpler two category system that combines the biological and geological sounds within a single, natural sounds category (Benfield et al., 2014;Gale et al., 2020;Kim & Shelby, 2011). For the purpose of this paper, the simpler natural and anthropogenic categories were used to address the research questions. ...
Executive Summary
This research expanded on prior use of visitor perception data to inform potential social indicators of soundscape quality, by integrating existing urban-context soundscapes work, and the emerging use of triggers to help managers identify concerns before they reach the threshold level. Along with existing measures of sound appeal and acceptability, sound dominance helped provide a sense of how the extent of particular sounds influenced visitor experiences and a desire to visit more. Geospatial data collection for 899 visitors and eight sites within the Coyhaique National Reserve (CNR) in southern Chile during the summer high visitation season of 2019, allowed researchers to examine perceptual similarities and differences, facilitating an evaluation of new perceptual variables for soundscape monitoring. Correlation analyses identified informative relationships between the dominance (sound duration and foreground/background placement) of natural and anthropogenic sounds, and overall soundscape ratings. The duration of natural sounds was positively correlated with soundscape-level ratings, while the duration of anthropogenic sounds was negatively correlated with these ratings. Unique trends and relationships were identified across specific sites, demonstrating the value of adding measures of perceived sound dominance to soundscape monitoring processes. Observed Protected Area (PA) visitor enthusiasm for sounds and soundscapes suggests potential for crowd-sourced citizen science-based methods that could be done voluntarily and regularly using simple and accessible applications and technologies.
... It must be pointed out, however, that some bird species are hard to find by human aural identification. There will also be more bird vocal activities in the breeding season, which makes it easier to identify birds, but existing research shows that the aural identification method can improve efficiency when using the sound of dawn and dusk (Lellouch et al., 2014;Miller et al., 2014). Perhaps birds' singing activities are affected by the light intensity (McNamara et al., 1987); on the other hand, due to long-term evolution, male birds prefer to sing at dawn and dusk, which is related to the female birds' activities (Slagsvold, 1996). ...
Soundscape mapping provides a unique perspective to explain the complicated spatial-temporal change of bird activities in urban forests. Most studies of soundscapes have used multi-point distribution to record sounds, which is challenging for explaining complex interferences factors in urban areas. In this study, we used soundscape mapping to explore the habitat selection of bird communities in the context of spatial-temporal structural changes. We selected the transition area from city to forest in Shenzhen, China, as the study area, set up 30 recording points which arranged in grid patterns (5 × 6), and used synchronic recording methodology to collect sounds. Aural species identification, power spectral density (PSD), and normalized-difference sound index (NDSI) were used to quantify sounds. Passerine birds (92.11 %) were found to comprise the first acoustic communities. Changes in bird species populations among seasons were noted, with spring having the most abundant bird species number (n = 59) and the most abundant ecoacoustic events. Bird communities with different frequency band clusters having different preferences for vegetation characteristics were detected. A significant two-way interaction between the accessibility of recording points and seasons on bird activities was found in this study. Urban forest spatial structure had a great effect on bird activities, and specifically through the shape of forest vertical structure complexity and forest edge effect. Our study shows the broader application potential of soundscape mapping in urban forest ecosystem research.
... Since the seminal paper of Scott and Shafer (2001a), several studies have analyzed the multidimensional nature of recreation specialization in birdwatching by using as main dimensions birders' behavior, skills and knowledge, and commitment (Eubanks et al., 2004;J. H. Lee & Scott, 2004;Miller et al., 2014;Scott et al., 2005;Scott & Thigpen, 2003). McFarlane (1994) and McFarlane and Boxall (1996) also proposed a multi-dimensional model; however, their model is based on centrality to life, economic commitment, and the respondent's past experience. ...
... In most prior studies, respondents were grouped based on their responses to specialization indicators. Birders were generally discriminated using cluster analysis, frequently in combination with principal component analysis (Hvenegaard, 2002;McFarlane, 1994;McFarlane & Boxall, 1996;Miller et al., 2014;Scott et al., 2005;Scott & Thigpen, 2003). J. H. Lee and Scott (2004) used a multivariate model with confirmatory scopes based on covariance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM) to demonstrate that behavior, skills and knowledge, and commitment were moderately related constructs. ...
... Their findings suggested that skills and knowledge better determine recreation specialization in birdwatching than do the other two dimensions. Empirical evidence suggests that the level of specialization influences variability among groups of birders in terms of the desired setting attributes, awareness, knowledge, conservation attitudes, information used to make site destination decisions, and behavioral, motivational, and economic aspects (Cole & Scott, 1999;Eubanks et al., 2004;Hvenegaard, 2002;Lessard et al., 2018;Maple et al., 2010;Martin, 1997;McFarlane, 1994;Miller et al., 2014;Scott & Thigpen, 2003;Shipley et al., 2019). Different specialization groups assign different values to the social benefits accruing from the recreation experience, and different marginal values to destination attributes (C. ...
Using data from a survey of Italian birdwatchers, we examined whether recreation specialization affects birders’ travel intention through a two-dimensional framework based on the “behavior” and “skills, knowledge, and commitment” constructs. The model was estimated through a partial least squares structural equation “spread” model. We implemented a second-stage analysis, using a seemingly unrelated regression (SURE) model to identify which birder characteristics, attitudes, and preferences significantly affected the path scores. The findings demonstrated a significant and positive relationship between recreation specialization and birders’ travel intention, and offer evidence that birders’ behavior and skills, knowledge, and commitment were statistically significant lower hierarchical order constructs of recreation specialization. The intensity of these connections varied according to the birder’s profile, the source of information used to choose the destination site and the reasons behind the choice of site for birdwatching.
