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Journal of Environmental Psychology 30 (2010) 103–111

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Aesthetic and affective effects of vocal and trafﬁc noise on natural landscape assessmentq Jacob A. Benﬁeld*, Paul A. Bell, Lucy J. Troup, Nicholas C. Soderstrom Colorado State University, Colorado, United States

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history: Available online 15 October 2009

National parks have mandates both to preserve and protect natural settings and to assist visitors in viewing and interacting with those settings. Considerable scholarship has examined the trade-offs between preservation and recreation goals, such as protection of a natural setting when some visitors want to experience it from noisy aircraft or ground vehicles. The current project expands on previous noise research that showed the presence of aircraft noise to be detrimental to aesthetic and affective environmental assessments. Participants rated 25 scenes under quiet conditions or while hearing 45 dB(A) or 60 dB(A) of either natural sounds (bird calls, breeze through foliage), natural sounds with aircraft sounds, natural sounds with ground trafﬁc sounds, or natural sounds with human voices. Results indicated that the presence of any anthropogenic noise–air trafﬁc, ground trafﬁc, or voices–negatively impacted environmental assessments, and more so at louder levels, while the natural soundscape had little to no effect on assessments. Additionally, the presence of air trafﬁc, ground trafﬁc, and human voices signiﬁcantly decreased participant ratings of serenity while also increasing ratings of hostility. These effects were strongest for scenes that were high in scenic beauty. Results are discussed in the context of sound quality management in national parks and other settings. Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Noise Affect Scenic evaluation Overﬂight Park

The U.S. National Park Service (NPS) system of parks exists to help preserve and protect naturally occurring assets for future generations as well as to provide unique locations for visitation and recreation by the current generation (National Wilderness Preservation Act, 1964; Yellowstone Act, 1872). As such, issues of visitation and preservation are at the forefront of several NPS policies and at times can be a source of conﬂict (Bell, Mace, & Benﬁeld, inpress). For example, some hikers and outdoor enthusiasts have become so incensed by the presence of motorized vehicle noise in national parks and other wilderness areas that they have formed community groups (e.g., Noise Pollution Clearing House, Noise Tasmania, and UK Noise Association) or launched websites (e.g., http://www. gwnoise.org, http://www.quiet.org, and http://www.naturesounds. org/) to combat the intrusion of noise in natural settings. Similar

q This research was supported by Cooperative Agreement No. H2380040002, Metrics of Human Responses to Natural Sound Environments from the National Park Service. Grantees undertaking projects under government sponsorship are encouraged to express freely their ﬁndings and conclusions. Points of view or opinions do not, therefore, necessarily represent ofﬁcial National Park Service policy. * Corresponding author. Department of Psychology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523-1876 United States. Tel.: þ1 970 491 7749. E-mail address: jake.benﬁ[email protected] (J.A. Benﬁeld). 0272-4944/$ – see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2009.10.002

preservation and recreation conﬂicts exist in parks throughout the world with different approaches taken while attempting to balance biological, cultural, and economic interests. For instance, in an effort to respect the spiritual signiﬁcance of Australia’s Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park (a.k.a. Ayer’s Rock) visitors are encouraged to sightsee via air tour rather than hiking on the sacred site (Bell et al., in press). In this unique case aircraft noise is introduced and promoted in order to aid the preservation of cultural artifacts. In other cases, recreational activities such as snowmobiling or scenic park overﬂights can be in direct conﬂict with the preservation goals of the park. For example, research shows that snowmobile noise and trafﬁc has adverse physiological effects on native wildlife in Yellowstone National Park (Creel et al., 2002). Aircraft overﬂights and the noise associated with those ﬂights have also been shown to negatively impact a number of animals in a number of ways (Pepper, Nascarella, & Kendall, 2003). Similarly, preservation problems such as erosion, decreased air quality, and higher noise levels are partly caused by recreation and leisure activities (Mace, Bell, & Loomis, 2004). In other cases, legislation focused speciﬁcally on preservation issues can negatively impact both the local economy and the recreation and leisure activities taking place. For example, a study of Grand Canyon air tours ﬂying out of Las Vegas estimated that air tours contributed $504 million to the southern Nevada economy,

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and estimated that a loss of such overﬂights would eliminate $249 million due to lowered tourism (Schwer, Gazel, & Daneshvary, 2000). However, in the interest of preservation of natural acoustic conditions, and noting that ﬂights had increased by 15,000 annual overﬂights in an 18-year period, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has instituted a limit on the number of Grand Canyon overﬂights (FAA, 2006; Kanamine, 1997). The National Park Air Tour Management Act of 2000 requires the NPS and the FAA to produce management plans for all parks where air tours occur. To summarize, the dual goals of preservation and recreation allow for millions of people to visit and enjoy some of the United States’ most spectacular natural and historical locations for generation after generation. At the same time, the two goals can create friction between one another and often become a source of conﬂict. It is both the pursuit of these goals and the conﬂict between them that drives a large body of research. 1. Ambient stressors, noise, and environmental assessment of park scenes Environmental psychology research on ambient stressors demonstrates both the complicated nature of environmental quality assessment and the importance of studying components such as temperature and noise on psychological state-of-being. Broadly deﬁned, ambient environmental stressors are, ‘‘chronic, global conditions of the environment.which, as stressors, place demands upon us to adapt or cope’’ (Campbell, 1983, p. 360). One ambient stressor in particulardnoisedhas been the focus of research in a number of situations and has been shown to have a number of negative effects (e.g., Aydin & Kaltenbach, 2007; Babisch, 2003; Beaman, 2005; Maschke, Rupp, & Hecht, 2000). Research on the interaction between noise and visual landscape preference has dealt with issues of visual vs. auditory dominance (e.g., Carles, Bernaldez, & de Lucio, 1992; Gifford & Ng, 1982) as well as the importance of sound-landscape congruence (Anderson, Mulligan, Goodman, & Regen, 1983; Carles, Barrio, & de Lucio, 1999). Results from these studies showed that both visual and auditory cues affect landscape assessment; the effects are most pronounced when visual setting and auditory cues are incongruent (e.g., natural sounds in an urban scene or urban sounds in a natural scene). This line of research ties directly to studies of noise in national parks because it suggests certain noise sources will detract from the natural beauty of these settings. Mace et al. (2004) focused speciﬁcally on environmental psychology research pertinent to national park issues of visual quality and sound levels in relation to both recreation and preservation. Of central importance to their analysis was the fact that humans will indeed be the judge of environmental conditions in the park. It is the visitor, legislator, tour operator, and park manager that will be the deciding factor regarding the acceptability of conditions. While very objective ratings can be made of several environmental features including sound level, other factors such as expectation, source attribution, prior experience, motives, and difference thresholds will impact the subjective response and evaluation of the environment. For example, research shows that escaping urban noise is a high priority for those visiting national parks, wilderness areas, and other outdoor recreation settings (Driver, Nash, & Haas, 1987), and that the presence of urban or technological sounds in such settings will be perceived more negatively and as more inappropriate than when heard in other contexts (Tarrant, Haas, & Manfredo, 1995). Taken together, these two ﬁndings show that an individual’s motives (escaping urban noise) and expectations (an absence of technological noise in natural settings) can drastically impact that same individual’s evaluation of the environment and its

components. In short, environmental assessments regarding the acceptability of recreational activity and its correlates (e.g., noise, erosion) need to include a large psychological component. Correspondingly, environmental assessments centered on the successful preservation of a natural environment should be equally concerned with the human perspective. In a separate article, Mace, Bell, and Loomis (1999) gave a powerful example of the importance of studying environmental assessment from a psychological perspective. Based on research showing that aesthetic evaluations were closely tied to several psychological dimensions including affect (e.g., Daniel, 1984; Ulrich, 1977; Ulrich, Dimberg, & Driver, 1991) and research showing that noise has an affective component (e.g., Tarrant, Haas, & Manfredo, 1995), Mace et al. hypothesized that the presence of noise would elicit a negative affective response and subsequently elicit lowered aesthetic evaluations of park scenes. Participants rated a series of slides depicting a Grand Canyon overlook under three separate sound conditionsdcontrol, 40 dB(A) aircraft noise, and 80 dB(A) aircraft noise. Their results showed a strong effect with ratings of several positive factors such as scenic beauty, preference, naturalness, and solitude decreasing signiﬁcantly with presence of aircraft noise and decreasing more with the presence of louder aircraft noise. Negative factors such as annoyance went up in the presence of the noise and even more so in the loud noise condition. In conclusion, Mace et al. showed that an individual’s environmental evaluation changed substantially with the addition of a single environmental stressor. Based on this ﬁnding it can be inferred that any event that adds an unwanted noise to the park environment is likely to detract from the larger park experience including landscape assessment. While Mace et al. (1999) provide some strong evidence of noise having a negative effect on affective and aesthetic landscape evaluations, there were a few limitations in their work that should be noted. First, Mace et al. did not test a baseline condition of some naturally occurring sound that would be found in the scenes tested. Their ﬁndings showed that the presence of aircraft noise at 40 or 80 dB(A) negatively impacts ratings compared to no sound. This left open the issue of whether or not the effect was due to the aircraft noise or simply the presence of some dominant sound. In a followup study, Mace, Bell, Loomis, and Haas (2003) included a natural sound comparison group and found the same results: aircraft noise negatively impacted aesthetic and affective ratings. Natural sounds did not impact ratings. A second limitation involves generalizability of the ﬁndings to other sources of noise. Even after Mace et al. (2003) had tested a baseline natural group, their ﬁndings could still be limited to aircraft noise. It is possible that some noises (e.g., aircraft) are more noxious than others (e.g., human voices) and therefore have a larger effect on aesthetic and affective evaluations. It is equally possible that aircraft noise is problematic but less so than other, less often studied intrusive sounds. For example, recent research shows that human voices are among the most annoying sounds heard in Muir Woods National Monument where visitors expect to hear bird calls, suggesting that talking and yelling could be even more damaging to aesthetic assessments of landscapes (Pilcher, Newman, & Manning, 2009). The purpose of the current project was to address these possibilities by expanding on the number of sounds tested using the same methodology that Mace et al. employed. Minor adjustments to the measures used were also included to help expand on existing knowledge in this area. It was hypothesized that Mace’s original ﬁnding that aircraft noise related to substantial variability in landscape assessment along both aesthetic and affective dimensions would hold true across a larger sample of parks and at a more realistic sound level (60 vs. 80 dB(A)). It was also hypothesized that the other anthropogenic soundsdspeciﬁcally, ground trafﬁc and

J.A. Benﬁeld et al. / Journal of Environmental Psychology 30 (2010) 103–111

human voices–would negatively impact affect and scenic ratings. A natural sounds condition (bird calls and breeze through foliage) was hypothesized to have no effect on landscape ratings in accordance with ﬁndings from Mace et al. (2003). 2. Method 2.1. Participants and design Two hundred ﬁfty-one undergraduate students (155 females, 96 males) participated in a one-hour laboratory session in exchange for course research credit. The majority (87.6%) were between the ages of 18–20 years old (M ¼ 19.38; SD ¼ 2.30; Range ¼ 18–43) and classiﬁed as in-state residents. According to self-report, participants had visited an average of four or ﬁve national parks in their lifetime (M ¼ 4.66; SD ¼ 3.51; Range ¼ 0–19). Participants rated park scenes while listening to one of four randomly assigned soundtrack conditions: natural sounds only (birds and breeze), natural sounds with mechanical ground trafﬁc added, natural sounds with mechanical air trafﬁc added, or natural sounds with human voices added. All participants within each of the four soundtrack conditions heard sounds at three different volumes: (1) control, or 40–45 dB(A) background level of the room with no soundtrack added; (2) soundtrack added at 40–45 dB(A); or (3) soundtrack added at 60–65 dB(A). 2.2. Materials/measures The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule Expanded Form (PANAS-X) consists of 60 emotion adjectives rated on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from ‘very slightly or not at all’ to ‘extremely’ based on the participant’s current emotional or affective state (Watson & Clark, 1994). The PANAS-X is broken up into the four broad emotional dimensions of general, negative, positive, and other affective types with each dimension having individual subscales (e.g., the general dimension consists of the original PANAS positive and negative affect scales). Of interest to this project were the subscales of positive affect (10 items, a ¼ 0.86), negative affect (10 items; a ¼ 0.88), hostility (6 items; a ¼ 0.82), attentiveness (4 items; a ¼ .72), fatigue (4 items; a ¼ .88), and serenity (3 items; a ¼ .74). Scenic evaluation scales were used for the measurement of participant reactions to the experimental stimuli. The scales used in this project consisted of the same seven measures used by Mace et al. (1999; naturalness, freedom, preference, annoyance, solitude, scenic beauty, tranquility) plus two additional items measuring serenity and appropriateness. The measure was identical in layout to the original study and the added items were formatted to be consistent with the original; that is, the characteristic being assessed was labeled above each response scale, which was 10 equal spaces anchored by ‘‘Low’’ and ‘‘High.’’ 2.3. Soundtracks Four different sound recordings taken directly from an acoustics database maintained by the NPS were used for the auditory manipulation. The natural sound condition contained a variety of bird calls along with wind rustling through foliage; it served as the base for all other sound conditions. The remaining three conditionsdnatural with voices, natural with ground trafﬁc, and natural with air trafﬁcdwere created by playing the natural sound recording with another clip containing only the added element being played alongside it. For these sound conditions, the added element (e.g., voices) was present on an almost continuous basis with the longest gap between sounds being less than 10 s.

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2.4. Visual stimuli A set of 30 scenes was assembled as the visual stimuli. The ﬁrst 5 scenes were practice slides to familiarize the participants with the procedure, rating sheet, and slide timings. The remaining 25 slides were target slides representing ﬁve scenes each from ﬁve national parksdYellowstone, Olympic, Saguaro, Grand Canyon, and Everglades. Each set of slides was chosen from a larger set of high resolution pictures taken within each park. Pictures were selected by a panel of three judges who were instructed to create a ﬁve-slide set for each park that was diverse in both setting and scenic beauty, with one slide from each park required to contain an indication of human construction in the form of a road or boardwalk, and one slide from each park required to include a sunrise or sunset. The ﬁve scenes from each park were shown consecutively, followed by the ﬁve scenes from another park, and so on in one of ﬁve random orders.

2.5. Procedure The procedure was a conceptual replication of Mace et al. (1999), including verbatim instructions and questionnaire formatting. The most signiﬁcant differences between the two studies involved the expanded set of evaluations taking place in this project. For example, the original procedure used the PANAS scale whereas this project used the expanded form that contains the original PANAS plus added subscales. The original procedure had six target slides from a single park (Grand Canyon) paired with 15 distractor slides; this project replaced the distractor slides with scenes from four other parks to expand the generalizability of the ﬁndings. A ﬁnal important difference between the two methods involved sound volume and source. The original procedure tested aircraft noise at 40 dB(A) and 80 dB(A). The current project tested aircraft noise, ground trafﬁc noise, human voices, and natural sounds at 45 dB(A) and 60 dB(A) which represents both a wider range of encountered sounds and more realistic levels for those sounds (especially in the high volume condition). Participants signed up for the study using an online recruitment website for an introductory psychology course and attended a single, one-hour research session. Participants completed an informed consent form prior to participation and were then randomly assigned to one of the four sound conditions. The experimental sessions were conducted in an 1818 ft (5.5 m5.5 m) room with participants seated 10 ft (3 m) away from a 6 6 ft (1.8 m1.8 m) screen. Scenes were digital photographs presented on the full screen via computer projector. Sounds were presented using a 4-channel surround sound system placed in the corners of the room. Participants were run in pairs. The PANAS-X and a brief demographic questionnaire were presented at the beginning of the larger research packet. Participants completed those three pages and were then given instructions concerning the scenic evaluation task. For the evaluation task, the set of 25 target slides was presented three times in each session (20 s per slide), such that participants made a total of 80 slide ratingsdﬁve practice slides followed three times by the 25 target slides. Each of the three runs of the 25 target slides was accompanied by one of the three sound levels: (1) control, or no added sounds to the 40–45dB(A) background from the room; (2) low volume added sounds of 40–45 dB(A); or (3) high volume added sounds of 60–65 dB(A). The three sound levels were presented in one of four random orders. At the conclusion of the evaluation task, participants were asked to complete the PANAS-X a second time and were then fully debriefed with regard to the purposes and methods of the project.

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3. Results

a substantial effect in the voice, ground trafﬁc, and air trafﬁc conditions. The effect seen in those ﬁnal three conditions is differential with some sounds (i.e., aircraft) having a more robust effect than others (i.e., voices or ground trafﬁc) as volume increased. In order to partial out which of the nine variables were accounting for the MANOVA results a series of repeated-measures analyses of variance (ANOVAs) was conducted with each of the nine dependent measures for each sound condition. Generally, the natural sound condition showed the smallest effects for noise volume. Annoyance (h2 ¼ .09), tranquility (h2 ¼ .14), solitude (h2 ¼ .08), and serenity (h2 ¼ .13) were signiﬁcantly affected by the volume of the natural condition while the remaining ﬁve ratings were not impacted. In all four instances where volume had a main effect, the control and 45 dB(A) conditions were not signiﬁcantly different from each other, and the 60 dB(A) condition was always signiﬁcantly lower than the 45 dB(A) condition (with the exception of annoyance, which was signiﬁcantly higher). This was in contrast to the much larger effect sizes for sound volume in the voices (h2 ¼ .08–.35), ground trafﬁc (h2 ¼ .14–.47), and air trafﬁc (h2 ¼ .18– .51) conditions. For these three sound conditions all nine rating variables were signiﬁcantly affected by change in volume and the rating differences between volume levels were more pronounced. With a few exceptions, control ratings were signiﬁcantly higher than the 45 dB(A) ratings, which in turn were signiﬁcantly higher than the 60 dB(A) ratings. Annoyance scores showed the opposite trend with control volume ratings being lowest and scores getting

Analyses were conducted on the averages of the nine ratings for each set of ﬁve park slides, with the three volume levels and four sound conditions as the independent variables. Means and standard deviations for the nine scales for each volume level and each sound condition are presented in Table 1. The correlation matrices for all nine dependent measures in each of the ﬁve parks is presented in Table 2 and shows relatively high correlations between dependent measures suggesting the use of a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). Annoyance was reverse scored to facilitate interpretation of the MANOVA results. 3.1. Effect of sound type and volume on scene ratings In order to best mirror Mace et al.’s (1999) original analyses and reporting of results, separate MANOVAs were run for each of the ﬁve parks and for each of the four sound conditions. The amount of variance in scale scores explained by noise volume varied by park and type of sound but followed a consistent pattern. Aircraft noise accounted for the largest percentage of variance in ratings (roughly 51–55%), ground noise and voices accounted for less variance (33–50%), and natural sounds accounted for even smaller and often non-signiﬁcant amounts of variance (6–15%). In short, a volume by type of sound interaction shows that natural sounds do not show the same results as the other three conditions. An increase in volume has little or no effect in the natural sound condition, but has

Table 1 Means and standard deviations for rating scales as a function of sound volume and sound condition. Rating

Natural

Control

Annoyance Tranquility Solitude Serenity Appropriate Preference Freedom Naturalness S. Beauty

2.60 6.88 7.35 6.83 7.02 6.75 7.60 8.61 7.29

(1.65) (1.36) (1.39) (1.30) (1.58) (1.34) (1.30) ( .87) (1.31)

2.68 7.50 7.90 7.48 7.76 7.32 8.25 8.87 7.85

(2.10) (1.59) (1.43) (1.63) (1.68) (1.32) (1.27) (1.03) (1.25)

2.25 7.33 7.61 7.31 7.54 7.14 8.01 8.65 7.67

(1.42) (1.61) (1.35) (1.63) (1.71) (1.58) (1.24) (1.03) (1.38)

2.10 7.28 7.60 7.25 7.42 7.20 8.11 8.76 7.71

(1.55) (1.61) (1.48) (1.64) (1.83) (1.52) (1.25) (1.10) (1.38)

1.56 1.44 1.36 1.48 1.58 1.60 2.69 .79 1.64

(.02) (.02) (.02) (.02) (.02) (.02) (.03)* (.01) (.02)

45 dBA

Annoyance Tranquility Solitude Serenity Appropriate Preference Freedom Naturalness S. Beauty

2.84 7.11 7.42 7.13 7.24 6.83 7.74 8.68 7.41

(1.72) (1.15) (1.17) (1.19) (1.33) (1.35) (1.18) ( .80) (1.19)

4.12 6.33 6.15 6.34 6.78 6.75 7.48 8.38 7.75

(1.92) (1.82) (1.90) (1.73) (2.05) (1.67) (1.69) (1.42) (1.40)

3.80 6.37 6.72 6.42 6.76 6.60 7.43 8.12 7.27

(2.08) (1.64) (1.74) (1.68) (1.94) (1.75) (1.73) (1.50) (1.59)

3.65 6.05 6.39 6.00 5.88 6.80 7.62 8.27 7.42

(1.93) (1.96) (1.83) (1.91) (2.03) (1.56) (1.51) (1.48) (1.52)

4.59 4.04 6.13 4.53 5.16 .25 .48 1.91 1.21

(.06)** (.05)** (.07)** (.06)** (.07)** (.00) (.01) (.02) (.02)

60 dBA

Annoyance Tranquility Solitude Serenity Appropriate Preference Freedom Naturalness S. Beauty

3.37 6.68 6.96 6.72 7.00 6.69 7.60 8.54 7.27

(1.67) (1.50) (1.51) (1.53) (1.57) (1.36) (1.37) ( .90) (1.32)

4.74 5.68 5.71 5.73 6.04 6.24 7.03 8.03 7.53

(2.40) (2.49) (2.48) (2.47) (2.67) (2.01) (2.15) (1.75) (1.54)

5.19 5.10 5.73 5.11 5.76 6.18 6.87 7.62 7.19

(2.62) (2.42) (2.36) (2.43) (2.61) (2.22) (2.32) (2.16) (1.82)

5.46 4.69 5.01 4.76 4.91 5.89 6.82 7.61 6.87

(2.51) (2.45) (2.37) (2.47) (2.49) (2.32) (2.01) (2.05) (1.93)

8.52 7.60 7.22 7.57 6.77 1.52 1.94 3.52 1.43

(.10)** (.10)** (.09)** (.10)** (.09)** (.02) (.02) (.04)* (.02)

F (h2) Volume

Annoyance Tranquility Solitude Serenity Appropriate Preference Freedom Naturalness S. Beauty

4.28 5.61 3.52 5.72 .75 2.08 1.28 .99 1.57

(.09)* (.14)** (.08)* (.13)** (.02) (.04) (.03) (.02) (.04)

27.33 24.22 36.76 24.18 17.31 15.93 19.19 15.07 4.62

(.34)** (.33)** (.41)** (.35)** (.27)** (.23)** (.26)** (.21)** (.08)*

51.17 29.80 32.36 30.49 21.38 13.22 14.58 10.75 8.17

(.47) (.39) (.39) (.39) (.32) (.19) (.20) (.16) (.14)

53.64 34.10 36.59 33.63 38.17 17.52 20.07 15.17 11.26

(.51) (.41) (.41) (.40) (.44) (.25) (.28) (.22) (.18)

* p < .05; **p < .01.

Voices

Ground Trafﬁc

F (h2) Sound Type

Volume Level

** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **

Air Trafﬁc

** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **

J.A. Benﬁeld et al. / Journal of Environmental Psychology 30 (2010) 103–111

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Table 2 Correlations of predictors for each slide set. Everglades Nat.

Free.

Pref.

Annoy.

Sol.

SB

Tranq.

Seren.

Appro.

Naturalness Freedom Preference Annoyance Solitude Scenic Beauty Tranquility Serenity Appropriateness

1.00 .72* .61* .45* .63* .56* .64* .63* .66*

1.00 .80* .51* .75* .73* .75* .74* .69*

1.00 .51* .72* .81* .76* .77* .62*

1.00 .60* .37* .54* .56* .60*

1.00 .68* .92* .91* .80*

1.00 .75* .76* .64*

1.00 .99* .82*

1.00 .84*

1.00

Free.

Pref.

Annoy.

Sol.

SB

Tranq.

Seren.

Appro.

Naturalness Freedom Preference Annoyance Solitude Scenic Beauty Tranquility Serenity Appropriateness

Yellowstone Nat. 1.00 .79* .66* .51* .62* .57* .63* .63* .65*

1.00 .80* .53* .75* .72* .76* .76* .70*

1.00 .55* .71* .78* .75* .74* .72*

1.00 .63* .44* .60* .60* .56*

1.00 .65* .90* .87* .76*

1.00 .72* .71* .65*

1.00 .99* .85*

1.00 .85*

1.00

Free.

Pref.

Annoy.

Sol.

SB

Tranq.

Seren.

Appro.

Naturalness Freedom Preference Annoyance Solitude Scenic Beauty Tranquility Serenity Appropriateness

Olympic Nat. 1.00 .76* .66* .45* .62* .51* .65* .67* .63*

1.00 .81* .51* .76* .72* .77* .79* .70*

1.00 .52* .74* .79* .75* .76* .69*

1.00 .69* .41* .66* .66* .62*

1.00 .60* .91* .91* .80*

1.00 .65* .67* .58*

1.00 .98* .83*

1.00 .82*

1.00

Free.

Pref.

Annoy.

Sol.

SB

Tranq.

Seren.

Appro.

Naturalness Freedom Preference Annoyance Solitude Scenic Beauty Tranquility Serenity Appropriateness

Saguaro Nat. 1.00 .66* .54* .41* .61* .53* .62* .60* .63*

1.00 .75* .52* .73* .71* .77* .66* .73*

1.00 .56* .65* .81* .76* .74* .71*

1.00 .51* .34* .45* .45* .53*

1.00 .66* .86* .84* .75*

1.00 .81* .80* .68*

1.00 .98* .81*

1.00 .81*

1.00

Free.

Pref.

Annoy.

Sol.

SB

Tranq.

Seren.

Appro.

Naturalness Freedom Preference Annoyance Solitude Scenic Beauty Tranquility Serenity Appropriateness

Grand Canyon Nat. 1.00 .68* .59* .40* .61* .52* .59* .56* .58*

1.00 .77* .53* .73* .73* .75* .76* .65*

1.00 .51* .67* .80* .77* .76* .69*

1.00 .55* .39* .55* .56* .54*

1.00 .67* .89* .87* .72*

1.00 .76* .76* .60*

1.00 .98* .79*

1.00 .80*

1.00

*p < .001.

signiﬁcantly higher at both the 45 dB(A) and the 60 dB(A) level. Table 1 also summarizes these ﬁndings. 3.2. Scenic beauty and the effect of sound type and volume The preceding analyses were carried out to replicate the original ﬁndings of Mace et al. and extend those ﬁndings to the presence of other anthropogenic sounds such as voices and ground trafﬁc. The results showed a signiﬁcant effect for both type of sound and volume of sound on all nine scenic rating scales, further demonstrating that anthropogenic sounds can negatively impact aesthetic ratings. In order to better understand the implications of those

ﬁndings in the context of the larger environmental context, other analyses were carried out to test for differential effects of sound type and volume based on the type of scene being rated. In this instance, comparisons were made between the average for the ﬁve scenes (one from each park) that were rated highest on scenic beauty and the average for the ﬁve scenes (one from each park) that were rated lowest on scenic beauty in the control condition when viewed for the ﬁrst time. That is to say, high and low scenic beauty selections were based on ratings given to the scene the ﬁrst time it was seen and in the complete absence of sound. Similar to the previous set of analyses, the strength of effect for each sound condition varied, with aircraft noise accounting for the

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largest amount of variance followed by ground trafﬁc, voices, and natural sounds. More importantly, results showed that observed effects of sound type and volume were different at the two levels of scenic beauty. High scenic beauty landscapes were impacted more often and to a larger extent compared to the low scenic beauty landscapes. For the natural sound condition, volume level had a signiﬁcant effect on annoyance (h2 ¼ .13), tranquility (h2 ¼ .09), solitude (h2 ¼ .15), serenity (h2 ¼ .12), and preference (h2 ¼ .07) for high scenic beauty scenes but no effect for any ratings in the low-beauty group. As seen in Table 3, no signiﬁcant differences existed between the control and 45 dB(A) conditions for the four signiﬁcantly affected high scenic beauty ratings and signiﬁcant decreases occurred between the 45 and 60 dB(A) conditions (with the exception of annoyance, which increased). For the three anthropogenic sound conditions, volume had an effect for all nine ratings in both the high scenic beauty (h2 ¼ .16–.41 for voices; .17–.49 for ground trafﬁc; .18–.49 for air trafﬁc) and low scenic beauty (h2 ¼ .12–.34 for voices; .10–.45 for ground trafﬁc; .10–.48 for air trafﬁc) groups. However, with only one exception, volume had a larger effect upon ratings for the high scenic beauty group. Table 3 displays means and standard deviations for both groups as well as summary statistics for the ANOVAs performed. Also shown in Table 3 are difference tests across sound conditions for each volume level and rating scale. As expected very small, almost always non-signiﬁcant differences existed between sound conditions in the control setting. However, results for the 45 and 60 dB(A) conditions indicated another important difference between high- and low-beauty scenes. At 45 dB(A) the high scenic beauty group showed signiﬁcant differences on six of the eight

rating scales with natural sounds always being signiﬁcantly higher than the other three groups (except annoyance ratings which were lower in the natural group). For the low scenic beauty group, only one (appropriateness) of the eight ratings was signiﬁcantly different. In this instance, the rating for the air trafﬁc condition was signiﬁcantly lower than the rating in the other three sound conditions. At the more extreme volume condition of 60 dB(A), results between the high- and low-beauty groups were more similar to one another and to the results reported in the previous set of analyses. For high scenic beauty slides, all eight ratings were signiﬁcantly different across sound conditions, with ratings in the natural sound condition always being higher than the other three conditions (except annoyance scores which were signiﬁcantly lower). The ratings for the three anthropogenic sound conditions were not different from one another. For the low scenic beauty slides, ﬁve of the eight ratings differed across sound conditions with ratings for tranquility, solitude, serenity, and appropriateness being signiﬁcantly higher in the natural condition; ratings for annoyance were signiﬁcantly lower in the natural condition. Once again, ratings in the three anthropogenic sound conditions were not signiﬁcantly different from one another. 3.3. Changes in affect as a function of sound type The PANAS-X was used to assess changes in several affective dimensions caused by exposure to the different sound conditions. Paired samples t-tests were used to compare pre-post differences in positive affect, negative affect, attentiveness, fatigue, serenity, and hostility. The results showed consistent patterns for several

Table 3 Means (and standard deviations) for effects of volume and sound condition for high vs. low scenic beauty scenes. Volume level

Rating

Natural High

Voices Low

High

Low

Ground Trafﬁc

Air Trafﬁc

High

High

Low

F (h2) Sound Type (High)

Low

F (h2) Sound Type (Low)

Control

Annoyance Tranquility Solitude Serenity Appropriate Preference Freedom Naturalness

2.06 8.08 8.32 8.26 8.07 8.31 8.81 9.43

(1.39) (1.47) (1.35) (1.28) (1.69) (1.35) (1.09) (.72)

3.25 5.90 6.57 5.79 6.06 5.39 6.49 7.62

(2.02) (1.60) (1.80) (1.63) (1.72) (1.66) (1.76) (1.45)

2.21 8.64 8.69 8.63 8.65 8.71 9.17 9.43

(2.09) (1.55) (1.43) (1.58) (1.59) (1.29) (1.12) (.81)

3.09 6.54 7.13 6.55 6.98 6.11 7.33 8.19

(2.27) (1.85) (1.73) (1.85) (1.95) (1.57) (1.56) (1.38)

1.83 8.44 8.49 8.45 8.33 8.47 8.99 9.25

(1.21) (1.49) (1.32) (1.49) (1.69) (1.60) (1.09) (1.00)

2.61 6.30 6.95 6.30 6.94 6.00 7.08 7.88

(1.67) (1.75) (1.49) (1.78) (1.69) (1.75) (1.44) (1.45)

1.86 8.37 8.45 8.36 8.31 8.66 9.01 9.40

(1.60) (1.64) (1.54) (1.64) (1.76) (1.35) (1.23) (1.22)

2.43 6.18 6.82 6.14 6.68 5.92 7.08 8.00

(1.70) (1.88) (1.77) (1.93) (2.02) (2.04) (1.74) (1.67)

.78 1.29 .71 .64 1.18 1.06 1.04 .54

(.01) (.02) (.01) (.01) (.02) (.01) (.01) (.01)

2.46 1.30 1.17 1.78 2.97 2.00 2.95 1.69

(.03) (.02) (.01) (.02) (.04)* (.02) (.04)* (.02)

45 dB(A)

Annoyance Tranquility Solitude Serenity Appropriate Preference Freedom Naturalness

2.29 8.23 8.23 8.35 8.24 8.38 8.87 9.48

(1.43) (1.14) (1.25) (1.15) (1.34) (1.30) (1.02) (.73)

3.51 5.89 6.44 5.97 6.28 5.41 6.42 7.62

(2.14) (1.38) (1.58) (1.48) (1.65) (1.80) (1.73) (1.56)

3.89 7.11 6.68 7.11 7.19 7.85 8.17 8.99

(2.03) (1.95) (2.10) (1.84) (2.08) (1.77) (1.69) (1.25)

4.44 5.73 5.85 5.76 6.25 5.80 6.82 7.81

(2.21) (1.86) (1.94) (1.87) (2.20) (1.78) (1.76) (1.68)

3.58 7.22 7.28 7.21 7.19 7.82 8.27 8.75

(2.22) (1.88) (1.90) (1.96) (2.14) (1.94) (1.83) (1.48)

4.06 5.54 6.12 5.53 6.11 5.62 6.56 7.47

(2.18) (1.72) (1.74) (1.79) (2.10) (1.72) (1.75) (1.73)

3.56 6.86 6.99 6.85 6.53 8.00 8.33 8.90

(2.06) (2.14) (2.05) (2.13) (2.28) (1.55) (1.74) (1.57)

3.85 5.20 5.79 5.13 5.29 5.68 6.65 7.58

(2.00) (2.07) (1.90) (1.99) (2.03) (1.96) (1.83) (1.70)

7.83 6.45 7.74 7.76 7.14 1.52 2.32 3.59

(.09)** (.07)** (.09)** (.09)** (.09)** (.02) (.03) (.04)*

2.00 1.64 1.66 2.37 3.10 .49 .56 .48

(.02) (.02) (.02) (.03) (.04)* (.01) (.01) (.01)

60 dB(A)

Annoyance Tranquility Solitude Serenity Appropriate Preference Freedom Naturalness

3.01 7.73 7.66 7.79 7.83 8.07 8.63 9.23

(1.89) (1.48) (1.66) (1.55) (1.58) (1.36) (1.27) (1.04)

3.67 5.84 6.17 5.74 6.31 5.46 6.47 7.67

(2.03) (1.60) (1.74) (1.75) (1.67) (1.69) (1.73) (1.38)

4.51 6.25 6.14 6.35 6.39 7.31 7.58 8.52

(2.63) (2.76) (2.72) (2.79) (2.91) (2.26) (2.30) (1.87)

5.07 5.01 5.18 5.15 5.67 5.37 6.36 7.33

(2.50) (2.30) (2.32) (2.28) (2.46) (2.02) (2.09) (1.90)

5.15 5.79 6.15 5.74 6.01 7.13 7.69 8.05

(2.71) (2.79) (2.56) (2.72) (2.83) (2.59) (2.56) (2.41)

5.43 4.44 5.37 4.43 5.45 5.22 5.98 7.09

(2.67) (2.14) (2.16) (2.16) (2.53) (1.94) (2.25) (2.19)

5.37 5.18 5.52 5.34 5.19 6.81 7.46 8.20

(2.61) (2.61) (2.67) (2.68) (2.60) (2.46) (2.09) (2.25)

5.57 4.32 4.59 4.31 4.68 5.08 6.14 6.93

(2.48) (2.38) (2.30) (2.42) (2.39) (2.33) (2.11) (2.14)

11.26 11.25 8.74 10.74 10.77 3.45 3.85 4.26

(.12)** (.13)** (.10)** (.12)** (.12)** (.04)* (.05)** (.05)**

7.85 6.17 5.62 5.32 4.88 .42 .70 1.72

(.09)** (.07)** (.07)** (.07)** (.06)** (.01) (.01) (.02)

26.03 27.98 40.81 27.43 27.05 19.46 22.32 11.69

(.31)** (.33)** (.41)** (.33)** (.33)** (.25)** (.27)** (.16)**

23.48 22.91 30.83 21.70 13.37 7.69 13.68 13.37

(.28)** (.29)** (.34)** (.29)** (.20)** (.12)** (.19)** (.18)**

58.66 38.96 44.67 44.68 28.23 17.44 15.26 12.06

(.49)** (.41)** (.43)** (.44)** (.35)** (.22)** (.20)** (.17)**

49.15 27.29 25.11 25.61 15.25 8.98 14.49 6.88

(.45)** (.34)** (.31)** (.33)** (.23)** (.13)** (.19)** (.10)**

55.36 43.06 34.85 37.71 47.45 23.42 21.39 12.57

(.49)** (.44)** (.38)** (.40)** (.46)** (.29)** (.27)** (.18)**

53.26 23.35 30.92 24.98 32.55 6.59 11.03 11.60

(.48)** (.29)** (.35)** (.31)** (.38)** (.10)** (.16)** (.17)**

F (h2) Volume Annoyance 10.38 (.13)** 1.72 (.03) Tranquility 5.22 (.09)** .54 (.01) Solitude 9.15 (.15)** 2.35 (.04) Serenity 6.83 (.12)** 1.52 (.03) Appropriate 2.46 (.05) 1.16 (.02) Preference 4.29 (.07)* .05 (.00) Freedom 2.34 (.04) .15 (.00) Naturalness 2.69 (.05) .07 (.00) *p < .05; **p < .01.

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affective dimensions, but not all results were consistent with Mace’s previous ﬁndings using the smaller version of the PANAS. For example, negative affect did not change signiﬁcantly in any of the sound conditions even though Mace et al. (1999) reported signiﬁcant increases in negative affect. The results for positive affect were as expected with exposure to the sound conditions causing a decrease in positive affect. However, this decrease was also observed in the natural sound condition, suggesting that the change in affect may be due to the experimental method (e.g., having to rate 80 pictures in a dark room) rather than the sound itself. Beyond the broad subscales of positive and negative affect that were used by previous researchers, the PANAS-X allowed for the testing of change in more speciﬁc affective components that had not been previously tested. Similar to the positive affect ratings, attentiveness scores decreased signiﬁcantly for all four sound conditions, making it hard to distinguish between change caused by type of sound and change caused by experimental method. The remaining three affective subscalesdhostility, fatigue, and serenitydappeared to provide more interpretable results. Fatigue increased signiﬁcantly (M ¼ 10.7 vs. 11.5) for the natural sound condition, t(59) ¼ 1.995, p ¼ .05, but did not change signiﬁcantly for the other three conditions. Conversely, serenity scores decreased signiﬁcantly for the three anthropogenic sound conditions, but remained stable for the natural sound condition. Taken together, these ﬁndings suggest that the natural sound condition maintained a serene atmosphere that likely had a calming, or fatigue-inducing, effect on participants. Hostility ratings also increased signiﬁcantly in each of the anthropogenic sound conditions but did not change in the natural sound condition. This ﬁnding is consistent with expectations based on other research involving ambient environmental stressors such as noise. A complete summary of all pre-post analyses pertaining to the PANAS-X subscales is given in Table 4. 4. Discussion Noise is an often studied environmental component that has been shown to have a number of effects. In the context of national

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parks, noise is often a source of conﬂict between the recreation and the preservation goals of the National Park Service. Aircraft noise in particular has been speciﬁcally targeted by management strategies and legislation because of research connecting it to a number of problems including stress, negative affect, and lower aesthetic evaluations. By replicating and extending upon previous research by Mace et al. (1999), the current project demonstrated that aircraft noise does indeed have wide ranging effects upon aesthetic and affective evaluations of landscapes (h2 ¼ .12–.46). This pattern of effects was present in all ﬁve parks tested and at volume levels that were more realistic than the original project (60 dB(A) vs. 80 dB(A)) showing that aircraft noise may be particularly robust in terms of interfering with scenic enjoyment. Aircraft noise consistently accounted for the largest amount of variability in scene ratings when compared to the other sound conditions tested. While aircraft noise was the most inﬂuential, both ground trafﬁc and voices conditions also related to signiﬁcant variability in evaluation scores. These previously untested sounds related to substantial amounts of total variability (33–53%) in all ﬁve parks and in all nine ratings (5–48%), suggesting that they too have a broad effect that warrants future study and consideration. These two ﬁndings could be used to help inform the types of management strategies that should be employed or prioritized in national parks and other settings where scenic quality and positive environmental evaluations are a priority. For example, these results suggest that ground trafﬁc is problematic regardless of volume, so should likely be managed to reduce it generally rather than only focusing on volume restrictions. The implementation of shuttle systems or other trafﬁc reducing measures would be consistent with this consideration. Voices also had a signiﬁcant effect upon ratings, so management strategies to encourage silence (or whispering) at particularly scenic spots might be most valuable. Research conducted in Muir Woods National Monument has shown that simple text prompts designating the area a quiet zone are effective in dropping decibel levels 3–4 dB(A), suggesting that these management strategies could be both easy to implement and quite effective (Newman et al., 2007).

Table 4 Pre-post comparison results for the PANAS-X affective scales by sound condition. Sound Condition

Affect

t

df

p

Pretest Mean (SD)

Posttest Mean (SD)

Natural

Positive Negative Attentiveness Serenity Fatigue Hostility

6.29 1.31 5.00 1.51 2.00 1.62

58 59 59 59 59 59

.000 .196 .000 .138 .051 .110

27.49 13.60 12.55 10.02 10.70 7.20

(6.97) (3.39) (2.40) (2.60) (3.82) (1.65)

22.68 13.00 10.75 9.42 11.53 7.77

(7.82) (3.53) (3.60) (3.27) (4.53) (2.63)

Voices

Positive Negative Attentiveness Serenity Fatigue Hostility

7.14 .84 5.20 5.11 .14 4.51

62 61 62 61 62 62

.000 .405 .000 .000 .887 .000

27.94 14.53 12.38 10.48 10.59 7.62

(6.73) (3.98) (2.85) (2.46) (3.90) (2.08)

21.97 15.02 10.18 8.34 10.52 9.98

(6.89) (5.09) (3.27) (3.15) (3.74) (4.32)

Ground trafﬁc

Positive Negative Attentiveness Serenity Fatigue Hostility

6.12 .33 5.03 3.57 .67 3.21

64 64 64 64 64 64

.000 .738 .000 .001 .509 .000

28.05 13.32 12.69 10.14 10.09 7.20

(6.04) (3.90) (2.52) (2.19) (3.67) (1.90)

22.97 13.52 10.72 8.72 10.42 8.66

(6.85) (4.96) (3.07) (3.17) (4.14) (3.83)

Air trafﬁc

Positive Negative Attentiveness Serenity Fatigue Hostility

6.04 .57 3.78 5.57 .33 3.09

61 61 61 61 61 61

.000 .570 .000 .000 .740 .003

27.03 13.79 12.26 9.92 10.27 7.31

(7.00) (3.99) (3.07) (2.28) (3.72) (2.25)

22.53 14.08 10.82 7.82 10.11 8.73

(8.03) (4.24) (3.97) (2.56) (4.00) (3.52)

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A separate set of analyses suggests that not all scenes are equally affected by noise. Ratings for scenes that were judged to be particularly beautiful were most impacted by the presence of anthropogenic sounds. Larger effects for volume and sound type were shown for high scenic beauty compared to the low scenic beauty landscapes. This ﬁnding provides an important distinction for researchers and resource managers to consider. Within more applied situations such as park resource management and preservation, priority can be given to scenic overlooks or other locations that visitors feel are particularly beautiful since those settings are most sensitive to noise effects. Related to more basic research interests, these results suggest a potential confound in both scenic evaluation and sound research. If sound impacts scenic evaluation and scenic quality modiﬁes the inﬂuence of sound, then stringent laboratory controls and experimental methods that do not consider baseline scenic quality could have problems of external validity. Previous cross-sectional or correlational projects that took place in more realistic conditions may not have accounted for the importance of one factor (e.g., sound) or the other (e.g., scenic beauty) depending on the primary goals of the researchers (e.g., scenic evaluation or sound impact assessment). In the context of basic research on visual-auditory congruence (e.g., Anderson et al., 1983) these ﬁndings present an interesting problem for the existence and management of anthropogenic noises in national parks. While voices, automobiles, and airplane noise are dominant features in most park soundscapes, these sounds are still not congruent with visitor expectations for natural settings so therefore diminish landscape assessments. It is not entirely clear how to reconcile a perceived incongruence between a natural setting and sounds that are undoubtedly present in most situations (e.g., human voices). In addition to the scenic evaluation ﬁndings, the current project expanded on Mace et al.’s (1999) examination of noise effects on affective ratings. The current ﬁndings were somewhat mixed, with no effect of sound on negative affect found and an all-encompassing negative effect of sound on positive affect, suggesting that previous ﬁndings may have been more the result of the methodology (i.e., completing a boring task for an extended amount of time) rather than the sound presented. On the other hand, consistent differences in more speciﬁc affective states related to hostility, fatigue, and serenity suggest that sound has effects broadly consistent with Mace et al.’s original ﬁndings. Natural sounds were calming and fatigue inducing; anthropogenic sounds reduced serenity and created hostility. This is similar to the original ﬁnding that anthropogenic sounds decreased positive affect (e.g., serenity) and increased negative affect (e.g., hostility). It is worth mentioning that anthropogenic noise is often the impetus for recreation vs. preservation conﬂicts in the national park system, and the current results indicate that those types of noise are responsible for hostility and a loss of serenity. Future research designed to better parcel out the relationship between affective states and sound volume and type would be valuable given the inconsistencies between this project’s ﬁndings and Mace et al.s’ ﬁndings. Findings from those two studies raise the question: Are the observed changes in positive and negative affect a result of participant fatigue as this study showed or the result of the sound or volume manipulation as Mace et al. (1999) suggested? Projects utilizing a more succinct methodology (e.g., betweensubjects designs testing only one volume level, sound type, and/or run of 25 slides) would be able to reduce existing confounds such as participant fatigue while better isolating the effects of the different sound manipulations on affective states. Given the similarity between these ﬁndings and previous research by Mace et al. (1999, 2003) it is reasonable to conclude that a wide range of anthropogenic sounds can have substantial

impacts upon individual landscape assessments along both aesthetic and affective dimensions. Natural soundscapes do not seem to have the same effect upon assessments, showing that management concerns centered on anthropocentric sounds in national parks and other scenic areas are well-founded. These human generated sounds interfere with the larger outdoor experience in ways that naturally occurring sounds do not. By testing multiple sound sources the current project gives initial evidence that the anthropogenic sounds caused differing levels of change, suggesting that some are more problematic than others. Future projects will need to better quantify these differences and partial out which speciﬁc components (e.g., tire noise vs. car doors or children’s voices vs. adult conversation) relate to the largest amount of change. Those speciﬁcs can be used to inform future research and management decisions about managing these noise sources. It is also worth noting that this set of ﬁndings meshes well with research conducted in ﬁeld settings using park visitors. For example, ﬁeld research shows that anthropogenic sounds are judged to be highly annoying by park visitors (e.g., Tarrant, Haas, & Manfredo, 1995) while this laboratory research showed annoyance ratings to be the most impacted by the noise manipulation. Undergraduate students are not an ideal representation of the very diverse park visiting population, but the laboratory setting and available sample allowed for controlled, experimental testing of the variables of interest. Similar approaches were used by researchers in Canada, Spain, and other parts of the United States when assessing other aspects of visual-auditory dominance and congruence (e.g., Anderson et al., 1983; Carles, Bernaldez, & de Lucio, 1992; Gifford & Ng, 1982) and those results have generalized to a number of settings. Research also shows that results from similar student samples generalize to much larger and more diverse populations when the outcome variables represent basic psychological processes (e.g., affect or aesthetic evaluations) that apply to the larger situation (Anderson, Lindsay, & Bushman, 1999). Similarly, results from a well-controlled experiment allow for conclusions that are much stronger than those gained through correlational survey research (Aronson, Wilson, & Brewer, 1998). While a growing body of evidence exists for the role of sound on scenic evaluations, the complementary view that scenic quality affects sound evaluations has not yet been adequately tested. This project provided initial support for the utility of such research, and it would be valuable to explore this possibility further for several reasons. First, obviously neither the scene nor the sound exists independent of the other so a better understanding of the interplay between those two is necessary for a complete view of the current problem. Second, sound management and preservation in parks and other settings is difﬁcult to achieve. Aircraft operators and the FAA must have established routes to hundreds of locations just in North America. Park visitors and staff alike will have to rely on some form of transportation to access the parks, and once they are there they will communicate verbally with one another. By better understanding the role of scenic quality on sound assessment the NPS may be able to selectively pick or target areas that would be especially affected by noise. For example, they could work to restrict ﬂights over particularly scenic areas or to make those areas designated quiet zones to reduce talking and voice volume. Finally, more information about scenic quality impacting sound assessment could inform very different areas of interest and environmental problems. For example, occupational and transportation noise is often viewed as a signiﬁcant cause of annoyance, stress, and other ailments (e.g., Lawson & Walters, 1974; Leather, Beale, & Sullivan, 2003; Loewen & Suedfeld, 1992; Raffaello & Maass, 2002). Similarly, other urban noises such as air conditioners are annoying for some people (Bradley, 1992; Zannin, Calixto, Diniz, & Ferreira,

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