Evaluating soundscape in the Italian language: Validation of the translation of the English standardized perceptual attributes of the ISO/TS 12913-2:2018 and comparison with other Romance languages

The Soundscape Attributes Translation Project (SATP) has successfully translated English standardized perceptual attributes of the ISO/TS 12913-2:2018 into various languages. This paper validates the Italian translation of the widespread use of the soundscape circumplex model attributes for using standardized listening experiments protocol. The Italian translation of the ISO soundscape circumplex model was compared with the original English version. Furthermore, a comparison with other Romance languages (i.e., Portuguese, Spanish, French) that have already concluded the validation was carried out. The study was conducted following three phases: (i) a consensus on the final eight attributes of the Italian language was achieved, (ii) the recruitment of 30 na & iuml;ve normal-hearing Italian listeners and the preparation of the set-up for the listening tests was fostered, (iii) listening tests based on the 27 binaural recordings provided by the SATP project to examine the differences in subjective evaluations of the same sound environment were administrated in the Audio Space Lab of Politecnico di Torino. The main findings of the listening tests consisted in the validation of the Italian translations against English, in the comparison of the perceived loudness in the Italian and English listening tests that showed no significant differences, and in the satisfactory match of Italian translations in comparison with other Romance languages. Although slight differences probably due to cultural aspects were found, these outcomes are helpful to properly develop the Italian version of the ISO 12913-2 and to pursue accurate and replicable soundscape studies.