Fostering Sensory Divergences in Ambiance Theory: from auraldiversity discourse towards multisensory experience(s)

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Drever, John L.; Rosas-Pérez, Carmen; Radicchi, Antonella and Cobianchi, Mattia. 2025. 'Fostering Sensory Divergences in Ambiance Theory: from auraldiversity discourse towards multisensory experience(s)'. In: Shaping the Future: Living Places. Lusófona University, Lisbon, Portugal 3 - 4 July 2025. [Conference or Workshop Item]

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Abstract or Description

For this COST Action on urban ambiance to be relevant to the whole of society, truly capturing the complexity and diversity of lived, embodied experience, it is fundamental from the outset to address and probe its extant epistemological foundations which in turn will shape future developments. This paper will focus on sensory divergency, that is, divergence from sensory normalcy. It will take its lead from work already done around hearing and seeing, and the salient concepts around what has been defined as auraldiversity (Drever 2017; Drever & Hugill 2022; Drever, Cobianchi, Rosas-P´erez 2023) and more recently, visualdiversity (Radicchi & Henckel 2023). Within acoustics and related disciplines, the tendency was to model hearing derived to a healthy young subset of society (e.g., equal loudness contours are enshrined in policy and guidance through the ubiquitous application of dBA). Because of the adherence to this model, a large proportion of auditory experiences remain excluded (e.g., neurodivergence, PTSD, hearing loss, specific hearing needs, infants, the elderly), and this exclusion is replicated in related fields. Studies on sound perception, noise annoyance, and soundscape research considered in the major reviews on the topics base their outcomes on the assessment made by participants with ”normal hearing”, being this a recruitment requirement. The diversity in other demographic aspects such as age or socioeconomic status tends also to be limited. These reviews inform policies on environmental sound, building acoustics, soundscape interventions, and epidemiological assessment on the effects of noise on health, and therefore have an impact on entire communities of humans and non-human species. In addition, most psychology and environmental psychology articles have an intrinsic bias in relation to researchers and participants: they are mostly from the Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic societies. In 2010, in a review of comparative databases from across the behavioural sciences, Henrich concluded that “WEIRD subjects are particularly unusual compared with the rest of the species– frequent outliers” (Henrich et al. 2010).

The limited representation of the sensory experiences in research is translated into a limited consideration of the diversity of experiences of sounds in actual, complex societies and the design of their spaces. This exclusion is also present in the visual sphere. The needs of people with non-normative vision or visual sensitivities have been the subject of recent works that also highlight the main barriers in common spaces, as well as measures that can help increase visual accessibility. Here, we will share and transpose some of the key concepts underpinning auraldiversity, and present some of the recent initiatives that are encouraging designers to develop a more inclusive perspective. Finally, we will propose a reflection on how the typical (and usually required) methodological approaches and data analysis in sensory research are rooted in pre-conceptions based on sensory normalcy, and on the implications of epistemic exclusion in an ”evidence-based” society. We hope this paper acts as a prompt to ask how we embed sensory diversity at the heart of our emerging conception of ambience in theory and practice.

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Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)

Keywords:

ambiance; sensory divergency; sensory normalcy; auraldiversity; WEIRD; visualdiversity; synaesthesia

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