The sound perceptions of urban pavements by sighted and visually impaired people – a case study in Surabaya, Indonesia

The valuation of pavements using sound aspects is crucial for a country with poor pavement conditions and a large population of visually impaired people. This study recruited sighted and visually impaired participants to conduct a “soundwalk” to appraise the urban pavements. It was held in-situ on nine renovated pavement segments in Surabaya, Indonesia. Data were collected using a questionnaire comprising open and closed-ended questions in the format of a semantic scale. The SPL was also measured to describe the sound level concerning participants’ sonic perception. The semantic data were then extracted using varimax-rotated principal component analysis with a polychoric correlation. The sighted group elicits two solid soundscape dimensions; pleasantness and eventfulness. The visually impaired group evokes four soundscape dimensions; pleasantness-direction-safety, space, eventfulness, and contour. The soundscape dimensions reflect the pavements’ critical factors and show that visually impaired participants appraise the pavements in more detail than the sighted.