Research On Audio-Olfactory Interaction In Urban Public Open Spaces

Urban public open spaces are fundamental to the operation of a city.However,the particularly prominent problem at present is overemphasizing visual perception while overlooking other sensory aspects.With the advent of experience economy in the 21 st century,we have entered the sensory era,and sensory interaction design came into being under this background.At a time when audio-visual interaction and visual-olfactory interaction design have been relatively mature,audio-olfactory interaction provides a new angle and way for the design of urban public open spaces,and therefore exploring audio-olfactory interaction in urban public open spaces not only plays a necessary role in improving the sensory environment of urban public open spaces,but also has important innovative significance in the field of sensory interaction.This study aims to reveal the audio-olfactory interaction in urban public open spaces,therefore understanding the current situation of audio-olfactory interaction in such areas is the premise.Based on the subjective evaluation of participants,the sensewalk method was used to investigate the current situation of audio-olfactory interaction in three types of urban public open spaces in China.After proving the existence of the audio-olfactory interaction in urban public open spaces,effects of audio-olfactory interactive perception were studied through a laboratory experiment,where different sounds(birdsong,conversation,traffic)and odours(lilac,osmanthus,coffee,bread)were selected,each with three intensity levels of low,medium and high.The change of psychology inevitably leads to the change of behaviour.For the influence of audio-olfactory interaction on crowd behaviour,unmanned drone was used to observe the behaviour,and the influence of typical combinations of sound and odour on crowd behaviour was analyzed.Based on the research results,the design strategies of audio-olfactory interactive environment in urban public open spaces were put forward.Through sensewalk,the studies of sensory source perception,sensory environment description,sensory factor prediction and sensory expectation under audio-olfactory interaction showed that sound and odour did not affect each other's probability and degree of perception and attribute judgements.However,sound and odour affected each other's subjective evaluation,reflected in a result that positive sound and odour improved each other's subjective evaluation,while negative sound and odour had the opposite effect.Furthermore,odour's influence on sound evaluations was greater than the influence of sound on odour evaluations.The study also found that most participants believed that sound and odour affected each other's perception,and wanted to hear or smell natural sounds or odours in urban public open spaces.Through laboratory experiments,the effects of olfactory factors on sound perception,auditory factors on odour perception and audio-olfactory interaction on overall perception were studied.It was found that sound and odour affected the subjective evaluation of each other,and there was a “masking” effect that weakened the subjective intensity of each other.A positive sensory stimulus improved the evaluation of other senses,while a negative one had the adverse effect,which was consistent with the results of the sensewalk study.Sound and odour also had impacts on the overall evaluation,and the effect of sound on overall comfort was stronger than that of odour,while the effects of sound and odour on congruency were almost equal.Through field behaviour observation,the effects of the interactions of plant odour,food odour,pollution odour and sounds on crowd behaviour were studied.It was found that the interaction of sound and odour affected the path,speed and duration time of the crowd,reflected in a result that plant and food odours,and music attracted the crowd and increased duration time,while pollution odour and fan sound kept people away from the sensory source and shorten the duration time.The combination of sound and odour produced a superposition effect,which was proved when the negative odour enhanced the influence of sound on crowd path,and there was an interactive effect between food odour and sound on the crowd path.There was interactive effect between plant odour and sound on crowd speed;however,the interactions of food odour,pollution odour and sound had no significant effect on crowd speed and duration time.Finally,based on the research results,the study put forward design strategies from six aspects: the establishment of the theoretical model and the overall design goals and principles,the selection of design methods according to the design purposes,the selection of sound and odour,the overall regulation and control of sound and odour factors and environment,the combination and layout of sound and odour factors,and the attention to the behaviour of users.This paper aims to provide reference for the design of audio-olfactory interactive environment in urban public open spaces.