Sound Affects

Alaa Algargoosh and Babak Soleimani

Collaborators: Babak Soleimani, PhD candidate in Architecture (Design studies) and Masters candidate at the School of Information; Mojtaba Navvab, Associate Professor of Architecture; Sile O’Modhrain, Associate Professor of Music, School of Music, Theatre & Dance and Associate Professor of Information, School of Information; John Granzow, Assistant Professor of Music, School of Music, Theatre & Dance

Sound Affects: The emotional impact of Aural Architecture Architectural acoustics is the science that deals with sound inside buildings, and many researchers argue that the physical measurements of architectural acoustics do not precisely reflect the human aural experience. Therefore, including the perceptual and cultural aspects, in addition to the physical aspects, provides a holistic approach to understanding the aural experience. The physical aspect focuses on analyzing sound propagation, the perceptual aspect deals with the physiological effects of sound and its relation to human cognition, and the cultural aspect studies the role of cultural background in sound perception. By analyzing the physiological indicators of the subject (such as heart rate and skin conductance) while listening to simulations of historical architectural aural environments, this research aims to provide a new comprehensive method of analyzing the aural architecture.