Exploring Emotional Dynamics in Urban Settings Through Smartwatch Data and Real-Time Subjective Reporting

This study reports a pilot investigation combining the collection of physiological indicators via commercially available smartwatches with an intuitive emoji-based subjective reporting tool, EMOSy, to examine the dynamics of short-term emotions, which play a significant role in constructing people-place relationships in urban environments.The survey protocol was designed to address limitations of previous studies, such as laboratory-centric measurements and non-intuitive scales for subjective reporting, in order to more accurately reflect real-world settings while reducing participant burden.Analysis revealed that correlations between subjectively reported emotion valence and arousal and physiological or environmental indicators were observed for a small number of items, and consistent patterns across participants were few.Rather, those patterns varied substantially between participants.For instance, increases in emotional pleasantness and intensity were associated with lower resting heart rate and reduced walking intensity in one participant, whereas others showed inverse or almost no correlations.These findings indicate that individual characteristics, in addition to environmental context, might be meaningful factors in emotional dynamics in urban settings.Although confirming whether these trends and patterns are consistent requires larger-scale research, the findings of this study could inform urban planning and related practices.Specifically, it may be possible to enrich people's urban experiences by accommodating diverse place-based emotional patterns.