Exploring cross-modal perception: audio, visual, and thermal responses to changes in audio-visual Stimuli within virtual urban parks

Human perception is an essential factor in soundscape. Humans are multisensory beings, and thus, their perceptions are influenced by various multisensorial experiences. Our perception of a soundscape is not solely influenced by the sound in itself but also by various non-auditory factors. This research examines how visual factors, other than auditory, influence people's perceptions in public open spaces. An experiment was conducted using audio and visual stimuli. Three setups were compared: audio-only, visual-only, and combined audio-visual stimuli to observe differences in the respondent's perception. Furthermore, this research examines not only auditory perception but also visual and thermal perceptions, all of which are known to be important in public open spaces. The statistical test ANOVA showed that the Audio-Visual and visual-only stimuli produced a significant difference (p<0.05) in the thermal perception. On the other hand, the Audio-Visual and audio-only stimuli did not result in any significant differences. This study contributes to understanding the interaction between different sensory modalities and how it affects our perception. The findings underscore the importance of considering multisensory experiences, including auditory, visual, and thermal aspects when designing or evaluating environments in urban settings.