Abstract
Soundscape research has recently been applied in enclosed built environments to characterise and design the acoustics of living and working spaces from a perceptual point of view (Torresin et al. 2020). In this context, sounds are foundational in shaping the acoustic quality of a place and determining people’s affective response to it. While traditionally research on classroom acoustics has focused on the impacts of “noise" on students’ and teachers’ performance, research is called to investigate the potential role of wanted "sounds", e.g. those brought indoors by opening windows in positive urban contexts, in fostering positive emotions that may in turn lead to positive cognitive outcomes (Hamida et al 2023, Shu & Ma 2019, Torresin et al 2020). It is thus essential to know which factors impact soundscape assessments and which sound stimuli are favoured by students. In the following, we present the results of a socio-acoustic survey conducted in three primary schools, in order to: 1) characterize the influence of urban context on the perception of sound dominance, valence, and arousal, 2) identify the potential influence of frequency with which certain sounds are heard, personal characteristics of students, and acoustic characteristics of the classroom on valence and arousal.