Effect of Street Performance (Busking) on the Environmental Perception of Public Space

This is the first experimental study testing the effect of street performance (aka busking) on the subjective environmental perception of public space. It is generally believed that street performance can enhance people’s experience of public space, but studies advocating such a view have not used a control group to explicitly verify the effect of street performance. In response to this methodological limitation, we conducted two studies using experimental design. Study 1 (N = 748) was an online computer-based study where research participants evaluated the extent to which the presence vs. absence of street performance could change their perception of public space. Study 2 (N = 162) was a between-group quasi-experiment in an actual public space where people physically present in the space evaluated the perception of the space with vs. without street performance. Overall, we found converging results that street performance could make public space more visitable, more restorative, and more preferable. The current findings not only fill in a gap in the literature on street performance, but they also inform the policy making and regulations of street performance.

The Black Effect: Reimagining Racial Threat Through a Black Absolute Status Lens

Sentencing scholars have established the importance of examining how contextual-level factors influence judicial decision-making. Several studies have tested whether the presence of, or change in, minority populations—indicators of racial threat—impact disparate treatment of racial/ethnic minorities. Relying on these conceptualizations, however, ignores other important nuances of racial threat. The current study addresses this methodological limitation by employing a newly established comprehensive conceptualization of racial threat. More specifically, data from the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing (FY2013-2015) are used to examine whether Black absolute status, a measure that taps into the sociopolitical position of Black citizens, influences the nature of racial disparities. Findings suggest that Black/White sentence disparities may be moderated by the extent of Black absolute status at the county level.

Eye-Level Street Greenery and Walking Behaviors of Older Adults

Evidence suggests that built environment characteristics affect older adults’ travel activity behaviors, e.g., walking and cycling, which have well-established health benefits. However, the relationship between urban greenery and walking behaviors remains unclear, partly due to methodological limitation. Previous studies often measured urban greenery from a bird’s eye perspective, which may mismatch with the pedestrian’s perception from the street. In this study, we measured greenery view index from eye-level streetscape photos retrieved from Baidu Street View, an online mapping service provider. Walking behaviors of 180 older adults in six neighborhoods were collected from questionnaires. We also measured land use diversity, pedestrian-oriented design (street connectivity), and population density—the three Ds of the built environment. Results show that street greenery view index contributes to walking time of older adults, suggesting street greenery should be taken into design consideration to promote walking behaviors of older adults.

The Rules of the Game: History and Historical Method in the Context of Faith: The Via Media of Methodological Naturalism

This essay explores how it is possible for scholars who have a faith perspective to still participate in historical-Jesus research in a critical manner that is credible to the wider academic community. The focus is on the tensions created for the scholar when the primary sources use divine causation as an explanation for an event. The first part of the essay considers what the term 'history' means and how a historian goes about doing history (i.e., the 'rules of the game'). The second part considers three different approaches used in biblical studies to handle descriptions and explanations in the primary sources that use divine causation. The ontological-naturalistic approach rejects such explanations while the critical-theistic approach is open to such explanations. Distinguishing these two approaches from each other are different ontological worldviews. Based upon the understanding of history developed in the first part, the essay argues for a via media between these approaches that sets aside the ontological impasse. Methodological naturalism views history and historical method to be limited to human causation. This is an acknowledged methodological limitation, rather than an ontological one. Issues of divine causation are left to the distinct discipline of theology.