| dc.description.abstract | Similar to normal-sighted people, visually impaired people also like to
spend leisure time in shopping malls. Regrettably, public facilities in
developing countries hardly accommodate the visually impaired, who
mainly use their sense of hearing. A soundwalk method was employed
to collect the sonic perception of sighted and visually impaired people
in shopping malls, and varimax rotated principle analysis was used to
extract the data. The results reveal that soundscape dimensions of
pleasantness and space are the two most prominent factors for both
groups of participants. In general, the visually impaired perceived the
surveyed shopping malls more favourably than the sighted, which is
unexpected. They also perceive soundscape dimensions of danger and
direction using the hearing sense alone, which can help improve
shopping malls. In contrast, the sonic perception of the sighted is
somehow mixed with visual perception. | en_US |
