B3 Non-refereed article in a conference publication
Adapting to non-human listening agencies
Authors: Kytö, Meri
Editors: N/A
Conference name: InterNoise
Publisher: Institute of Noise Control Engineering (INCE)
Publication year: 2024
Journal: NOISE-CON Proceedings
Book title : INTER-NOISE and NOISE-CON Congress and Conference Proceedings
Journal name in source: INTER-NOISE and NOISE-CON Congress and Conference Proceedings
Volume: 270
First page : 5012
Last page: 5016
ISSN: 0736-2935
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3397/IN_2024_3536
Web address : https://doi.org/10.3397/IN_2024_3536
One central concept in soundscape studies has been that of an acoustic community, i.e. a group of people sharing an understanding of a listened environment, either acoustic or mediated. This understanding manifests in recognition of sound sources, their communicative function and their discoursive use in everyday life. The growing use of hearing aids, noise-cancelling headphones and other intelligent listening technology renders the soundscape more individual and at the same time introduces a non-human listening agency as a mediator to the individually calibrated soundscape. This raises conceptual and methodological questions of listening abilities in general and of how the listening experience is to be understood as taking place in a shared environment. To illuminate this problematic the paper will present as a case how listening through cochlear implants and their sound prosessors can be understood as a process of adaptation to a mediated acoustic community.