Induction of Human Behavior by Presentation of Environmental Acoustics

Many conventional guidance systems utilize words and signals that need to be recorded by humans. However, these systems have the disadvantage of going unnoticed or being too intrusive when used in quiet places, such as a museum. Human behavior is known to change as a result of varying feelings and ambient sounds elicit pleasant and unpleasant feelings. We therefore hypothesized that creating a comfortable sound field at a particular location would induce human behavior. To induce human behavior with sound, we constructed a system that divides space without a physical barrier by focusing sound in a narrow area. Using this system, we examined the possibility of generating an acoustic field in a narrow target position and measured the output accuracy of the presented acoustic pressure. In addition, we tested whether humans were unconsciously guided by the effects of this system.