Reaching common ground: Protocol for a qualitative study to explore Korean immigrant patient experiences in shared decision-making with primary care physicians.

Modern urban life exposes people to constant stress, noise, and mental fatigue. Urban crowding, environmental noise, and continuous cognitive demands can reduce well-being and increase the need for restorative experiences []. In response, many people seek environments that help them relax, recover, and regain psychological balance. Natural and cultural landscapes have therefore become important destinations for leisure and restoration. Recent research has examined how multisensory experiences in historical and cultural settings can contribute to tourists’ mental restoration []. Acoustic conditions are a key part of visitors’ environmental experience. Earlier studies have shown that sounds from nature, including bird calls, running water, and wind, are often linked to lower stress and better recovery from cognitive fatigue [,]. These effects are commonly explained by two complementary theories. Attention Restoration Theory focuses on the recovery of depleted attentional resources, whereas Stress Reduction Theory emphasizes more immediate emotional and physiological recovery in supportive settings [,]. Although these perspectives have been widely applied in natural and nature-based recreational settings, including forests and rural landscapes [,–], they have been used less often in heritage tourism environments. This gap is important because heritage settings often contain not only natural sounds, but also culturally meaningful sounds related to religion, ritual, and history. The soundscape perspective offers a useful way to understand this issue. Under ISO 12913−1, soundscape is understood as the acoustic environment as people perceive or experience it within a particular context [,]. This definition highlights that soundscape is not only a physical condition, but also a subjective and contextual experience. Previous studies have shown that soundscape perception is mainly structured around the core dimensions of pleasantness and eventfulness [,]. At the same time, some researchers have suggested that additional descriptors, such as harmony, naturalness, or appropriateness, may help explain context-specific soundscape qualities in complex environments [,]. Empirical research further suggests that positively perceived soundscapes can improve emotional responses and psychological outcomes [,].