Hearing the city without vision: An exploratory study

This exploratory study explored what sounds people with varying amounts of auditory experience perceive hearing in city soundscapes without vision, and also how these sounds are ranked in order of importance by those with the most auditory experience. Auditory experienced and auditory inexperienced participants without vision participated. The auditory experienced mentioned 2 to 3 times more sounds than the auditory inexperienced; they perceived hearing several aspects of each sound and ranked identity the most important and location the second most important aspect. The auditory inexperienced typically mentioned one aspect per sound, either identifying or imitating them, rarely and only in general terms their location. These results warrant further research on auditory awareness, both when vision is lost at birth and later in life, and also on the process of developing from auditory inexperienced to auditory experienced without vision, especially in the field of orientation and mobility.