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Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
This study reports on subjective acoustical field measurements made in a survey of 36 Catholic churches in
Portugal built in the last 14 centuries. The same group of college students were asked to judge the quality
of speech and music at all the churches. Two sets of listeners in each church evaluated live music
performance (cello and oboe) at two similar locations in each of the rooms using a seven-point semantic
differential rating scale. An acoustical evaluation sheet was used to measure listeners overall impression of
room acoustics qualities, and each of the factors that can contribute to that perception as loudness,
reverberance, intimacy, envelopment, directionality, balance, clarity, echoes and background noise.
Speech intelligibility tests were also given to the same group in each church. One-hundred-word lists were
used in live speech tests using a theater college student as speaker. The results are graphed and analyzed
by comparisons. Variations of subjective and speech intelligibility qualities were identified among the
different churches and within each of the churches as well. The subjective qualities that contributed to
overall acoustical impression were also identified.