Search Results (105)

Citywalk, a recently emerging form of leisure-oriented mobility, reflects increasing public interest in healthier lifestyles and more immersive urban experiences in Chinese metropolises. This study develops an integrative assessment framework combining Importance–Performance Analysis (IPA) and the Kano model to examine both functional and affective dimensions of pedestrian satisfaction. Based on a multidimensional assessment model that integrates 25 factors of pedestrian perception, large-scale surveys were conducted in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, focusing on perceptions of spatial form, sensory atmosphere, accessibility, safety, and supporting facilities. A Satisfaction Scale (SS) and an Importance Scale (IS) were used to quantify responses, and the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) statistic indicated adequate sampling reliability. Results show that in Beijing and Shanghai, Biodiversity Visibility and Ecological Connection (LE5 = 3.706) and Street Furniture and Urban Amenity Integration (IN2 = 3.255) respectively rank first in terms of satisfaction, while Guangzhou showed highest satisfaction ratings with Pedestrian Infrastructure and Circulation Systems (IN3 = 3.206). It concludes that accessibility, safety, and route signage represent basic expectations whose absence substantially lowers satisfaction, and integration of cultural narratives were identified as effective design features associated with improved comfort and engagement. The framework and findings provide an empirical basis for analyzing pedestrian experience and identifying priorities for improving citywalk environments under different urban conditions. Full article

Auditory cues are an important, though often overlooked, component of the multisensory experience of food consumption, directly influencing consumer perception and enjoyment. This study investigates how prior food-related experiences affect the perception and preference for food sounds, with a focus on artisanal bread, a popular staple food with distinctive auditory characteristics. A group of 113 participants was recruited and assigned to one of the two groups: 53 attended a bread-making workshop to establish enriched audiovisual associations, while 60 watched bread-making videos online, which represented a comparatively limited form of sensory engagement. Participants rated their perceived comfort levels for three distinct bread-related food sounds before and after the intervention. Sound recognition performance was also assessed as well as the appeal of the sounds. The results revealed that those who attended the workshop evaluated the close-up food sounds significantly more positively than those who watched the videos instead. Furthermore, regression analyses revealed that greater visual involvement during the workshop/watching videos was associated with increased comfort and decreased annoyance for the close-up bread sounds. These findings underscore the importance of multisensory integration experiences, particularly audiovisual integration, in shaping consumer responses and preferences for food sounds. To make sure that consumers feel comfortable and even hungry when they listen to food-related audial content, it is beneficial to incorporate familiar food sounds and, where possible, reinforce these with visual or experiential cues. Content that leverages multisensory associations and aligns with listeners’ prior experiences is likely to be more effective in eliciting positive sensory and emotional responses. Full article

Biophilic design has traditionally evolved from temperate-zone contexts, where access to nature is more readily available, and has rarely addressed the challenges of extreme climatic conditions. The potential of biophilic design to enhance health and well-being in cold environments, where exposure to nature must adapt to low temperatures, limited solar radiation, and pronounced photoperiod variation, remains underexplored. This study conducts a systematic meta-synthesis of biophilic architectural design strategies in Arctic and Sub-Arctic regions, adopting the SALSA (Search, Appraisal, Synthesis, and Analysis) framework in alignment with PRISMA guidelines to ensure methodological transparency and reproducibility. Nine peer-reviewed studies published between 2019 and 2024 were analyzed using qualitative coding and synthesis in NVivo. The findings identify thermal comfort, daylight, and circadian regulation as the most influential biophilic parameters, while greenery and water features, common in temperate frameworks, were limited due to environmental constraints. Key interventions include adaptive envelopes, optimized window design, intermediate buffer zones, and materials that balance insulation with sensory enrichment. The study proposes an “Interventions–Parameters–Outcomes” framework that illustrates the interrelationships among biophilic strategies, health-related outcomes, and climatic adaptation. While all studies originated from northern Canada, the conceptual framework provides a transferable foundation for future empirical validation and comparative research across diverse cold-climate regions, contributing to the advancement of climate-responsive, human-centered design in extreme environments. Full article

Mirror therapy (MT) has been recognized for its potential to harness neuroplasticity and improve recovery in post-stroke patients. In MT, a mirror tricks the brain into thinking that the weak or paralyzed side of the body is moving when the healthy side moves, thereby helping to stimulate healing and relearn movement after a stroke or injury. However, MT is limited in addressing the sensory impairment and visual feedback ownership on the affected hand. A combination of MT and electrical muscle stimulation (EMS) is believed to enhance muscle strength and sensory perception, but lacks synchronization with the movement intention of the healthy hand. This study aims to advance MT to further promote neuroplasticity through movement synchronization in both hands. A stretch-sensor glove was used on the unaffected hand to capture finger movement kinematics, controlling the electrical intensity of an EMS device on the assumed affected hand. Thereby, a proportional control of electrical intensity and synchronous movement of both hands was achieved. This study compared four types of electrical intensities, spanning from baseline (no stimulation) to higher intensities (S0–S4). As a result, body representation perception showed an overall negative correlation with the level of comfort associated with the stimulus. Enhancements in body representation perception were significantly confirmed (p < 0.01) in stronger stimulus types, notably S4 and S4F of the spontaneous movement scheme, compared to the baseline stimulus S0 and the weak intensity S1. There may be a possibility of enhancing neuroplasticity by strategically using various electrical intensities. The proposed system shows promising performance by enhancing body representation through improved visual feedback ownership at higher electrical intensities. Full article

This study examined the influence of brand presence and discrete emotions on consumer acceptance and purchase intent of commercial chicken noodle soups. A total of 324 evaluations across three soup categories (chunky, low-sodium, condensed) were conducted under blind and unblinded conditions using a 42-term emotion lexicon. Brand presence did not exert moderate-to-large effects, though subtle brand-specific differences cannot be excluded. Instead, three emotions, “satisfied,” “disgusted,” and, for condensed soups, “bored,” emerged as the strongest predictors, together explaining a substantial proportion of variance in liking and purchase intent. Many other positive emotions clustered around “satisfied,” highlighting a parsimonious set of dominant drivers. Quiet positive emotions such as contentment, peacefulness, and warmth consistently aligned with both acceptance and purchase intent. These findings extend prior research by showing that consumer responses consolidate around a limited set of emotions, underscoring that evoking subtle, self-focused positive feelings may be more effective in comfort food marketing and product development than reliance on brand identity or nostalgia. Full article

During the transition from urban expansion to renewal, optimizing environmental comfort under resource constraints presents critical challenges. While existing research confirms that multisensory interactions critically shape environmental comfort, these insights are rarely operationalized into protocols for resource-constrained contexts. Focusing on historic urban quarters that need to balance modification and preservation, this study quantifies multisensory (acoustic, visual, thermal) interactions and integrations to establish operational resource-optimization strategies. Through laboratory reproduction of 144 field-based experimental conditions (4 sound sources × 3 sound pressure levels × 4 green view indexes × 3 air temperatures), systematic subjective evaluations of acoustic, visual, thermal, and overall comfort were obtained. Key findings demonstrate: (1) Eliminating extreme comfort evaluations (e.g., “very uncomfortable”) within any single sensory domain stabilizes cross-sensory contributions to overall comfort, ensuring predictable cross-domain compensations and safeguarding resource efficacy; (2) Accumulating modest improvements across ≥2 sensory domains reduces per-domain performance threshold for satisfactory overall comfort, enabling constraint resolution (e.g., visual modification limits in historic districts); (3) Cross-domain optimization of environmental factors (e.g., sound source and air temperature) generates mutual enhancement effects, maximizing resource economy, whereas intra-domain optimization (e.g., sound source and sound pressure level) induces competitive inefficiencies. Collectively, these principles establish operational strategies for resource-constrained environmental improvements, advancing sustainable design and governance through evidence-based multisensory approaches. Full article

ADHD and misophonia are developmental neurological disorders that are currently increasing in prevalence due to excessive acoustic and visual pollution. ADHD, which is characterized by a lack of attention and excessive impulsive hyperactivity, and misophonia, which is hypersensitivity to sounds accompanied by a severe emotional and psychological reaction, are both affected by the user’s spatial environment to a great extent. Spatial design can contribute to increasing or decreasing these unfavorable sensory triggers that affect individuals with ADHD and/or Misophonia. However, the role of architectural spatial design as a therapeutic approach to alleviate the symptoms of Misophonia and ADHD has never been proposed before in the literature, despite its accumulative and chronic effects on the user’s experience in everyday life in terms of well-being and productivity. Therefore, the current work discusses this problem of neglecting the potential effect of architectural spatial design on alleviating Misophonia and ADHD. Thus, the objective of the current work is to propose customized architectural spatial design as a therapeutic approach to alleviate Misophonia and ADHD through adopting the compatible architectural trends of minimal and metaphysical architecture. The methodology of the current work includes a theoretical proposal of this customized architectural spatial design for alleviating these two special neurological conditions. This includes introducing and analyzing these two neurological conditions and their relation to and interaction with architectural spatial design, analyzing minimal and metaphysical architectural trends employed in the proposed therapeutic architectural design, and then proposing augmented and virtual reality as auxiliary add-ons to the architectural spatial design to boost its therapeutic effect. Minimal architecture achieves the “no emotion” criteria through reduced forms, patterns, and colors and adopts simple geometry and natural materials to reduce sensory stressors or stimuli, in order to alleviate the loss of attention and distraction prevalent in those with ADHD, as well as allowing the employment of acoustic materials to achieve acoustic comfort and noise blockage for Misophonia relief. Metaphysical architecture leads the hierarchy of sensory experience through the symbolistic, dynamic, and enigmatic composition of forms and colors, which enhance the spatial analysis and cognitive capacities of the inhabitants. Meanwhile, the use of customized virtual and augmented reality environments is an effective add-on to minimal and metaphysical architectural spaces thanks to its proven therapeutic effect in alleviating various neurological disorders and injuries. At this level of intervention, VR/AR can be used as an add-on to minimal-architecture design, to simulate varied scenarios, as minimal design offers a clean canvas for simulating these varied virtual environments. The other option is to build these customized VR/AR scenarios around a specific architectural element as an add-on metaphysical architecture design to lead the sensory experience and enable the user to detach from the physical constraints of the space. AI-generated designs were used as a proof of concept for the proposed customized architectural spatial design following minimal and metaphysical architecture, as well as to provide AR and VR scenarios as add-on architecture to enhance the therapeutic effect of these architectural spaces for Misophonia and ADHD patients. Furthermore, the validity of VR/AR as a therapeutic approach, alongside the customized architectural design, was discussed, and it was concluded that this study proves the need for extended clinical studies on its efficiency in the long run, which will be conducted in the future. Full article

Over the last decade, soft robotic gripper systems, such as grippers, have been used in a variety of applications, particularly in human rehabilitation. This study aims to enhance the rehabilitation process by creating a mirroring system glove for hand paralysis patients due to injury, stroke, hemiplegia, and others. A soft and flexible liquid silicone rubber (LSR) was used to develop and build a pair of gloves to improve comfort and safety compared with rigid rehabilitation equipment. The non-affected hand’s sensory glove, equipped with flex sensors, detects motion by measuring the bending angle at each finger. The other glove uses Arduino and a pneumatic system to help the afflicted hand accomplish training exercises. The new design of a gripper is important for manufacturing gloves that provide acceptable gripping behavior. Full article

Despite growing global interest in customer experience management, limited research has systematically integrated both quantitative and qualitative approaches to identify service performance gaps and formulate strategic responses in airport settings. This study addresses this gap by examining how Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport can enhance its passenger experience through empirical analysis and international benchmarking. The research investigates the alignment between international passengers’ expectations and their actual experiences across seven key airport touchpoints: check-in, security, immigration, boarding, accessibility, facilities, and retail areas. A structured survey of 474 outbound international passengers was conducted between June and July 2024 using purposive sampling. Quantitative data were analyzed using Importance–Performance Analysis (IPA) to evaluate six experience components: affective, cognitive, sensory, conative, physical, and social identity. The IPA results revealed notable service gaps, particularly in conative engagement, physical comfort, and social identity, which were subsequently prioritized for strategic improvement. To validate and enrich strategy formulation, qualitative benchmarking was conducted through semi-structured interviews with ten executives at Hong Kong International Airport, a global leader in passenger experience management. The resulting strategic framework, termed the SCOPE strategy, integrates passenger insights with expert perspectives to guide the design of seamless, personalized, and empathy-driven airport experiences. Theoretically, this study contributes a validated six-component passenger experience model and demonstrates the utility of IPA in service design for complex transport hubs. Practically, it offers airport authorities a replicable, data-informed roadmap for enhancing emotional engagement, service consistency, and cross-stakeholder collaboration in similarly scaled international airports. Full article

Tactile sensation is a crucial sensory pathway for humans to acquire information from the environment, and vibration feedback is one form of tactile feedback, offering advantages such as low cost, ease of integration, and high comfort. Avoiding mechanical crosstalk without changing the spacing between vibration units is a significant challenge in the design of haptic interfaces. This work focuses on the joint optimization design of vibration source characteristics and packaging materials of vibration units. From a theoretical modeling perspective, we explore the correlation between material properties and the amplitude of vibrations generated on the skin surface. A three-layer vibration unit optimization design scheme using a pogo pin structure is thus proposed. Parameters are optimized through finite element analysis, and experimental results prove that the three-layer vibration unit with pogo pins has amplitude modulation capabilities, laying the foundation for the design of array-based vibration tactile feedback interfaces and human-inspired grasp control. Full article

Objectives: This study evaluated the comfort of using silicone tubes installed in the oral cavity as a reservoir for a hydrogel that allows for a slow delivery of the active substance acting locally or systemically. Methods: Perforated silicone tubes 8 cm long with two internal diameters were used: T1 (1.5 mm) and T2 (2.4 mm). The reservoirs were filled with hydrogel placebo formulations: carbomer 1.5% (C), hydroxyethylcellulose 4% (HEC), or hydroxypropylmethylcellulose (hypromellose) 3% (HPMC). Physical parameters of the gel were determined with a viscometer and a texture analyzer. During 4 h of application, the volunteers reported sensory perceptions, and the rate of gel erosion was evaluated. The results were correlated with the viscosity, rheology, and dissolution rate of the gels measured in vitro. Results: Volunteers reported only mild discomfort wearing the device, preferring smaller-sized tubes. The tubes were easy to apply and generally comfortable, with no reports of significant discomfort. Despite similar viscosity and rheology, the polymer type had a significant impact on erosion rate, both in vitro and in vivo. After 4 h of application in vivo, more than 90% of the carbomer gel remained in the tube, while in the case of less cohesive HPMC or HEC gels, this was about 50%. A statistically significant correlation was observed between the in vitro and in vivo mean erosion percentages for the HEC and HPMC gels. Conclusions: This study supports the use of silicone tubes as effective reservoir devices for prolonging the residence time of drug formulations in the oral cavity. Full article

Background/Objectives: Although nutrition is widely recognized as a key factor in post-event recovery in sports, little attention has been given to how its cultural and social dimensions—embodied in local cuisine—intersect with the needs of traveling athletes, for whom food often also serves as a medium of cultural immersion and sensory exploration. Poland, with its rich regional culinary traditions and numerous international running events, offers a compelling context in which to explore these interactions. This study aims to understand the role of local cuisine in the experiences of foreign runners participating in the Poznan Half Marathon 2025, with particular attention on cultural engagement, tourist motivations, and post-exercise recovery processes. Methods: This study was based on a qualitative approach, utilizing semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted with 12 international runners from the United Kingdom, Germany, and Ukraine. The participants possessed a minimum of two years’ experience in traveling for sports. Results: The findings identified three main areas of the significance of food: (1) food as an element of cultural exploration, (2) local cuisine as a motivator or barrier when choosing a race, (3) food as a symbolic reward and structured recovery practice supporting nutritional and psychological processes. Approaches varied by nationality—British participants preferred spontaneous taste discovery, Ukrainians valued culinary comfort similar to home, and Germans planned their culinary experiences with greater awareness. Conclusions: Local cuisine plays a multifaceted role in international running events, serving not only nutritional needs but also emotional and cultural functions that shape the overall participant experience. Both event organizers and local restaurants should consider offering diverse and culturally sensitive food options to enhance recovery, satisfaction, and the appeal of sports tourism destinations. Full article

Background: Demand for anesthesia-sparing body contouring techniques is rising. This study assessed the feasibility, safety, and outcomes of medial thigh lift performed exclusively under tumescent local anesthesia (TLA) in an outpatient setting. Methods: A retrospective review was conducted that included 43 female patients (mean age of 41.6 years; BMI of 27.6 kg/m²) treated from November 2019 to June 2023. All procedures used pure TLA without sedation; a horizontal excision alone or combined with liposuction was chosen according to preoperative evaluation. The end-points were operative time, intra-operative pain (four-point scale), complications, and 12-month patient satisfaction. Results: Surgery was completed under TLA in every case, with no conversion to general anesthesia. The median operative time was 30 min for excision-only procedures and 50 min when combined with liposuction. Intra-operative comfort was rated “excellent” (86.0%) or “good” (14.0%); no opioids were required postoperatively. The overall complication rate was 23.2% (10/43), limited to minor wound dehiscence (9.3%), dog-ear deformity (7.0%), and scar displacement/hypertrophy (7.0%). No seroma, hematoma, infection, thromboembolic events, sensory deficits, or hospital readmissions occurred. All patients were discharged after 4 h and resumed ambulation within 24 h. At 12 months, 97.7% reported being “very satisfied” or “satisfied.” Conclusions: Medial thigh lift under pure TLA provides reliable anesthesia and hemostasis, minimizes perioperative morbidity, and enables same-day discharge, with high patient satisfaction. The low incidence of only minor complications supports TLA as a safe, effective, and resource-efficient alternative to general anesthesia for selected patients with mild-to-moderate thigh laxity. Further comparative and long-term studies are warranted. Full article

This study explores the potential of craft-based activities in the context of special education, focusing on a papier mâché sculpting workshop implemented at the Special Kindergarten of Komotini, Greece, as part of the Horizon Europe Craeft project. The initiative aimed to assess how such creative activities could enhance the learning experience of children with intellectual and motor impairments, foster socialization, and develop fine motor skills. With reference to literature in art therapy, craft education, and inclusive pedagogy, the study applied a mixed-methods approach combining observation, visual analysis, and a survey. The findings indicate that, despite varied levels of participation based on individual needs, all students engaged meaningfully with the materials and activities. School professionals observed increased student engagement, emotional comfort, and communication, while also identifying the activity as well adapted and replicable in similar contexts. The results highlight the value of crafts in special education, not only as a sensory and cognitive stimulus but also as a means of fostering inclusion and self-expression. The study concludes with a call for further research into the role of tactile materials and hand gestures in relation to specific impairments. Full article

Thermal comfort is the condition of mind that expresses satisfaction with the thermal environment, and it is assessed through subjective evaluation, according to the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers. While research has traditionally emphasised physical factors, growing evidence highlights the role of the state of mind in shaping thermal perception. In a prior Monte Carlo sensitivity analysis, six mood subscales—Anger, Confusion, Vigour, Tension, Depression, and Fatigue—were examined for how they affect the absolute difference between actual and predicted thermal sensation. Depression and vigour were found to be the most influential, while confusion appeared least impactful. However, to accurately assess the role of confusion, it is necessary to consider its potential interactions with other mood subscales. To this end, a mediation analysis was conducted using Hayes’ PROCESS tool. The mediation analyses revealed that confusion partially mediated depression’s effect in males and vigour’s effect in females. These results suggest that, despite a weak direct impact, confusion critically influences thermal perception by altering the effects of key mood states. Accounting for the indirect effects of mood states may lead to more accurate predictions of human sensory experiences and improve the design of occupant-centred environments. Full article