New collaborative paper published in Cities

Psycho-behavioral responses to urban scenes: An exploration through eye-tracking

Former Billington lab post-doc and current Assistant Professor at Villanova University Arash Tavakoli led this study that now appears in Cities. As part of a joint project with PI Prof. Jackie Hwang (Sociology, Stanford) and Prof. Hae Young Noh (CEE, Stanford) funded through a Woods Institute Environmental Venture Project, Arash sought to study connections between the natural and visible attributes of urban environments and resident wellbeing. Specifically, the study explores conscious and unconscious (through eye-tracking) effects of the presence of construction sites, recreational vehicles (RVs), and trash within urban settings on people's self-reported stress, valence, and arousal, as well as perceptions of social disorder, social cohesion, danger, and desirability of different neighborhoods.

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