Does Soundscape Perception Lead to Environmentally Responsible Behavior? A Case Study in Longcanggou Forest Park, China

Abstract

Soundscape perception (SP) plays an important role in promoting tourist-place interaction and enhancing tourists’ environmentally responsible behavior (ERB). In this study, we defined SP as a second-order factor and investigated its relationships with place attachment (PA) and tourists’ ERB using structural equation modeling (SEM). Our aim was to identify how a soundscape could be improved to enhance the ERB of forest park tourists. Our results confirm the multidimensionality of SP, i.e., the three subdimensions of physical soundscape perception (PSP), psychological soundscape perception (SSP), and regional soundscape perception (RSP). Furthermore, our SEM results show that PA mediates the effect of the three subdimensions of SP on high-effort ERB (HERB). Our empirical results also reveal that the enhancement of tourists’ SSP will foster their ERB. This study therefore extends the multisensory landscape literature by offering insights into the relationship between SP, PA, and tourists’ ERB. Our findings provide empirical evidence for understanding the influence of SP on tourists’ ERB in forest parks and demonstrate that PA should be considered an important context for soundscape design.

Keywords

• soundscape perception
• place attachment
• tourists’ environmentally responsible behavior
• structural equation modeling