Construction Research Congress 2020
Can Pedestrians’ Physiological Signals Be Indicative of Urban Built Environment Conditions?
Publication: Construction Research Congress 2020: Infrastructure Systems and Sustainability
ABSTRACT
Pedestrians’ physiological signals [e.g., electrodermal activity (EDA) and gait patterns] offer a unique opportunity for assessing the urban built environment, by deepening our understanding on human-environment interactions. Leveraging physiological signals collected in outdoor ambulatory settings has thus been attempted in several studies. Yet a question still remains about whether and which physiological signals could present direct associations with negative environmental stimuli observable in the urban built environment. Motivated by this, the paper examines the association between physiological responses and negative environmental stimulus, through the design of an experiment that exposes subjects to a strong negative environmental stimulus (i.e., replica of a dead animal body) in outdoor ambulatory settings. The experimental results (n=31) confirm significant associations between the presented environmental stimuli and physiological signals (i.e., EDA and gait patterns), and also indicate that physiological signals could portray individuals’ varying degree of sensitivity to the presented stimulus. These findings highlight that pedestrians’ physiological signals provide meaningful information on direct responses to the surrounding urban built environment.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This study was partially supported by the National Science Foundation (CMMI #1800310) and TAMU T3 grant (#1017). Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation and Texas A&M University.
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Published In
Construction Research Congress 2020: Infrastructure Systems and Sustainability
Pages: 791 - 799
Editors: Mounir El Asmar, Ph.D., Arizona State University, Pingbo Tang, Ph.D., Arizona State University, and David Grau, Ph.D., Arizona State University
ISBN (Online): 978-0-7844-8285-8
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© 2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Published online: Nov 9, 2020
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