The current dataset is part of WP1 Task 1 "psychological restoration - soundscapes" and was collected between August and November 2022 in facilities of the German Centre of Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and Leipzig University. It consists of data from a sound sort paradigm where we asked a total of 48 participants to sort 16 pre-selected sound recordings from the forest that contain varying levels of acoustic diversity and volcalising bird species richness. With this study we aim to better understand the concept of perceived acoustic diversity. In detail we wish to obtain insights about acoustic cues that people use when being instructed to categorise recordings with varying acustic diversity / vocalising bird species richness.

A total of 48 subjects participated in this study. Participants had to sort 16 sound recordings containing varying levels of acoustic diversity / vocalising bird species richness. The experiment consisted of two open sorts and two closed sort. In the open sorts, participants were instructed to sort the recordings according to any similarity-based sorting criterion and subordinate categories they liked. In the closed sorts acousitc diversity and bird species richness were the sorting criteria. Participants were asked to sort the photos accoring to low, medium and high acoustic diversity / bird species richness, respectively. Closed sorts always followed the open sorts to prevent spillover effects.

We aim to quantify how people preceive and categorize forest sound recordings containing different levels of acoustic diversity and volcalising bird species richness. We do multidimensional scaling for the open sorts. For the closed sorts, the mean of the preceived acoustic diversity / perceived vocalising bird species richness scores will be correlated with actual acoustic diverssity / vocalising bird species richness.