Psychoacoustics of rock art sites: the case study of the shelters Diosa I and Horadada (Cádiz, Spain)

Abstract

The Artsoundscapes project seeks to understand the role of acoustics in the selection by past communities of certain environments to set activities involving rock art production. Within this framework, this article addresses the subjective perception of the acoustics of two rock art sites located in Cádiz (Spain): Diosa I and Horadada. The psychoacoustics of these two rock art sites is investigated by means of two separate listening tests. In the first test, a group of participants develops a corpus of words to subjectively describe the acoustic features of the selected sites. In the second test, a different group of participants rates the descriptors assigned by the first group. The auralizations, rendered via a third order Ambisonics speaker array, consisted of ten sounds of different characteristics (including singing, speech and music) convolved with a set of impulse responses gathered at the selected sites.