The effects of speech in interference in enclosed leisure spaces : a case of study in Bilkent Roll House, Ankara

Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate the speech interference of users in an open-planned multi-activities public leisure space. Bilkent Roll House was chosen as a leisure space because of its variety of activities in an open-plan such as bowling, dart, billiards, play station and dining area. In this respect, to analyze acoustical parameters and users characteristics of this study, a pilot and case study was undertaken by using questionnaires/intelligibility tests, computer simulations and real-size measurements. Questionnaires /speech intelligibility tests and Leq measurements were done in order to analyze noise annoyance ratings of the users of selected space as pilot study. The speech interference parameters measured as a case study are; Reverberation Time (T30), Speech Transmission Index (STI), Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) and Equivalent Continuous A-weighted Sound Pressure Level (Leq A). The results showed that reverberation characteristics of Bilkent Roll House are at the required range. However, it was observed that, the speech parameters (STI & SNR) results are insufficient in terms of speech communication. In addition, the noise level (Leq A) of the activities in Bilkent Roll House increases slightly in time. However, the results of Leq A at the dining area of Bilkent Roll House indicate that, users are affected in an informal way by the speech interference, and instead of increasing their voice level, they prefer to deal with their main activity to provide speech intelligibility in multi-activity spaces.