Multisensory Perception while Commuting: Match/Mismatch between Music over Headphones and the Acoustic Environment

The public transportation commuting environment is inherently multisensory, influencing people’s perception and reactions during their journeys through various senses and sensory cues. Few studies have examined the common individual activity of music listening with headphones during commutes as the context of a multisensory environment. To explore music-listening and multisensory experiences in the commuting environment, this study used the East Rail Line in Hong Kong as a case study to investigate people’s sensory responses to the match/mismatch between their immersive music listening and ambient environment during commutes. We conducted questionnaire-based diary reports (n = 58), where 14 participants responded to an online journey experience questionnaire, between two and six times over two weeks. We examined how individual music behaviours (audio level, genre, and duration) were influenced and adaptively adjusted in response to ambient environmental factors (Noise and Crowdedness) and internal individual factors (Preference and Mood). We discussed the importance of studying soundscape and multisensory everyday environments to improve public transportation commuting systems and experiences.