User Study Design

Our study has been approved for running at the Psychology labs at the IDC by the Dean of the New School of Psychology - Prof. Mario Mikulincer. We have also been given credits for recruiting student participants.

StreetBeat User Study Design

StreetBeat is a measure of the streets’ musical DNA. It Allows pedestrians to leave their mark on the street as well as see what other people are listening to; all this without violating their personal space.

In order to verify that this project can actually have an impact on the urban experience, we propose the following behavioral paradigm.

Pre-arrival:

3-5 participants are scheduled to arrive at the same time to the psychology lab lobby. Each of the participants is requested to send a favorite song(s) before arrival. A screen showing data about songs chosen by all participants is waiting in Observation Room 2.

Upon arrival:

Participants are given a smart-phone device with a pair of earphones/headphones. They are then requested to listen to the song they have previously sent while walking towards Observation Room 2 where the StreetBeat © data is shown. They are informed that the data on the screen is generated in near-real-time according to the content of music they are listening to.

Participants are finally asked to look at the sign and contemplate the experience of (a) seeing the song they chose on the sign (b) seeing other data on the sign (c) having others see what music they listen to (d) seeing music listened to by others.

Participants fill in a questionnaire relating to (a) attitudes regarding privacy (b) attitudes regarding leaving a mark (c) attitudes regarding exploring new music and interest in song-charts (d) general info (including general tendency to walk while listening to music) (e) any general comments about the experience.

Participants will be thanked.