The over-estimation of distance for self-voice versus other-voice

Self-related stimuli are important cues for people to recognize themselves in the external world and hold a special status in our perceptual system. Self-voice plays an important role in daily social communication and is also a frequent input for self-identification. Although many studies have been conducted on the acoustic features of self-voice, no research has ever examined the spatial aspect, although the spatial perception of voice is important for humans. This study proposes a novel perspective for studying self-voice. We investigated people’s distance perception of their own voice when the voice was heard from an external position. Participants heard their own voice from one of four speakers located either 90 or 180 cm from their sitting position, either immediately after uttering a short vowel (i.e., active session) or hearing the replay of their own pronunciation (i.e., replay session). They were then asked to indicate which speaker they heard the voice from. Their voices were either pitch-shifted by ± 4 semitones (i.e., other-voice condition) or unaltered (i.e., self-voice condition). The results of spatial judgment showed that self-voice from the closer speakers was misattributed to that from the speakers further away at a significantly higher proportion than other-voice. This phenomenon was also observed when the participants remained silent and heard prerecorded voices. Additional structural equation modeling using participants’ schizotypal scores showed that the effect of self-voice on distance perception was significantly associated with the score of delusional thoughts (Peters Delusion Inventory) and distorted body image (Perceptual Aberration Scale) in the active speaking session but not in the replay session. The findings of this study provide important insights for understanding how people process self-related stimuli when there is a small distortion and how this may be linked to the risk of psychosis.

A new and efficient algorithm to look for periodic patterns on spatio-temporal databases

Big Data is a generic term that involves the storing and processing of a large amount of data. This large amount of data has been promoted by technologies such as mobile applications, Internet of Things (IoT), and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). An example of GIS is a Spatio-Temporal Database (STDB). A complex problem to address in terms of processing time is pattern searching on STDB. Nowadays, high information processing capacity is available everywhere. Nevertheless, the pattern searching problem on STDB using traditional Data Mining techniques is complex because the data incorporate the temporal aspect. Traditional techniques of pattern searching, such as time series, do not incorporate the spatial aspect. For this reason, traditional algorithms based on association rules must be adapted to find these patterns. Most of the algorithms take exponential processing times. In this paper, a new efficient algorithm (named Minus-F1) to look for periodic patterns on STDB is presented. Our algorithm is compared with Apriori, Max-Subpattern, and PPA algorithms on synthetic and real STDB. Additionally, the computational complexities for each algorithm in the worst cases are presented. Empirical results show that Minus-F1 is not only more efficient than Apriori, Max-Subpattern, and PAA, but also it presents a polynomial behavior.

Spatial Dimension of Transport Exclusion Related to Statutory Trade Restriction—The Use of ITS Tools in Studies of Sustainable Urban Development

The problem of statutory restrictions of the freedom to conduct business activities is a subject addressed by many researchers. On the other hand, there is little research into the spatial aspect of this phenomenon and its impact on the quality of life of the inhabitants of urban centres in terms of their exclusion from one of the key motivations for travelling, namely shopping trips. The main purpose of the article is to determine the impact of the introduction of a statutory restriction on Sunday trading on sustainable urban development in terms of identifying areas excluded from free access to such services within a large urban settlement in Poland. Our studies on accessibility by car utilised data from ITS systems, the assumptions of the probabilistic Huff Model, and methods to determine market catchment areas. The data used in the study were based on the results of a questionnaire survey. The research procedure was conducted for eight scenarios that covered two periods (March 2019 and November 2020) on trading and non-trading Sundays. The conducted research shows that changes in the temporal accessibility of grocery shops in Łódź within the analysed periods are noticeable for trading and non-trading Sundays. In both cases, accessibility by private car is decidedly worse on non-trading Sundays. Transport exclusion from accessibility to grocery shops applies, in particular, to residents of peripheral areas of the city and is further compounded by the statutory Sunday retail restrictions implemented nationwide.

THE AIMS AND TRENDS OF THE SUSTAINABLE LAND TENURE FORMATION IN UKRAINE: THE SPATIAL ASPECT

The spatial aspect of the challenge of the sustainable land tenure formation has been scrutinized in the article. There is a set of unresolved issues at the point where interests of land owners, land users and the government clash, that witnesses the absence of effective mechanisms of the formed land tenure system improvement. At the transition to the market relations, with the private land property environment, new effective approaches to land redistribution and rational land use support are necessary. The research objective is the development of a complex approach to the land tenure spatial improvement for the sustainable development. Substantiation is carried out for the transition economy with Ukraine as an example. Land redistribution aiming at urban settlement area optimization and agricultural land tenure in the context of the social environment and economic benefit has been substantiated. The effectiveness of the spatial land improvement in the context of the national and local budget land fee revenues has been substantiated.

Architectural and aesthetic aspects of workspace at home – a new design challenge in the age of pandemic

The article deals with the issues of spatial changes taking place in the office work environment during a pandemic. It also raises issues related to the space intended for work at home or in an apartment. At present, the traditional model of office work is undergoing significant transformations. These transformations include, in particular, the spatial aspect. Large office spaces, especially those of the open-plan type, do not work well during a pandemic, as it is difficult to keep an appropriate social distance in them. Therefore, we spend less and less working time, whether for safety reasons or the sanitary and epidemiological regime, for work in the office. This phenomenon is particularly visible in city centers, where many large office buildings have become deserted. We spend more and more time working remotely (home-office). Therefore, it is necessary to adapt the space of our houses and apartments to the conditions in which we live and work today. The very concept of remote work or work from home is not new, many companies have already introduced it before, but most often for a limited time, which in principle could take place without major changes in private apartments. However, the pandemic has forced office workers to work remotely full-time, and thus to organize a workplace in their own home. This is often associated with the need to introduce additional furniture, equipment or lighting to a private interior. The problem of many people working remotely is the lack of an additional room that can be used as a study or office. Then we are looking for a place for our home office in rooms that have so far performed other functions (most often a bedroom or a living room), trying to introduce a place to work with them as possible. The issue of acoustics is also of great importance here, especially when there are more people working or learning remotely in the house or apartment. Moreover, many, especially young office (corporate) employees, own one-room apartments in the studio type, in which it is not possible to separate such a room. Then we have to add an additional office space to the space that already serves several functions (living room and bedroom). The author is a researcher and designer of this type of space, and the cases presented in the article show the changes taking place in spaces previously perceived as typically private.

Adaptive reuse of old houses as coffee shop: Environmental and spatial aspects

Adaptive reuse is a transformation carried out on buildings to provide new functions both from aesthetic and functional aspects. For decades, adaptive reuse has been a panacea for bridging the conservation and current needs for development. In addition, adaptive reuse has been considered an environmentally friendly approach to architectural conservation practices regarding the reuse of building materials and spaces. Besides government-imposed conservation, the community initiated to conserve everyday buildings by spontaneously and informally reusing and adapting various types of buildings known as a vernacular adaptive reuse. This study examines this vernacular approach by analyzing the process and changes that occur because of its application. The case study examined three residential houses that were built in the late 1960s and have been transformed into coffee shops. A research method is an approach through interviews with coffee shop business owners and local government, site observations on the surrounding area of old houses, building measurements, as well as literature studies related to adaptive reuse. The results showed that the process of the vernacular adaptive reuse approach was carried out by the business owners in a creative and pragmatic way with minimal cost and without expert’s involvement. Its application has positive impacts on the surrounding environment, such as social and economic activities, and it reduces environmental impacts by reusing abandoned buildings. In the spatial aspect, the old houses are regenerated by using a new spatial organization that still utilizes some of the spatial organization from the previous function.

Play, space, and the magic circle: Reinventing the game

In 2020, Dolanan, a collaborative practice exploring the architectural possibilities of play embedded in Indonesian traditional games, launched its pilot project titled Makan Kerupuk, which experimented on the spatial aspect of the crackers eating game often played during the Independence Day of Indonesia. Driven both by Johan Huizinga’s conceptualisation of the magic circle and the global pandemic, which prevented people from gathering in public space, this project probed into the limit of conventional play-arena by distributing the sites of play into multiple domesticities. Utilising both real and virtual means, Dolanan enacted a version of the game in which participants could engage with the physical experience of playing by employing a dispersal strategy, without dismissing the sense of publicness that marked the national holiday. Images produced by the participants are further analysed in this paper to reflect on the state of the magic circle as conveyed and experienced through this project.

The Paradox of Virtual Embodiment: The Body Schema in Virtual Reality Aesthetic Experience

"New technologies implied in art creation and exhibition are modifying the traditional landmarks on which aesthetics has always focused. In particular, Virtual Reality artworks call the body into question when it comes to living a bodily experience within exhibitions accessible through technological tools that expand the human body’s capabilities and motor potential. The body's status is challenged in its traditional unity, that of a subject of experience living in a world where the spatial configuration is relatively constant. Conversely, in Virtual Reality, the spatial aspect is novel to our body which needs to adapt to unpredicted and disorientating motor schemas. Therefore, the Virtual Reality aesthetic experience takes place into a novel configuration for the human body: hybrid and split into the virtual realm. Keywords: Aesthetics; Virtual Reality; Embodiment; Digital art; Bodily awareness "

The diversity and spatial polarisation of own incomes of the Polish gminas

Own incomes are considered one of the most important sources of financing for local governments in Poland. Although own incomes have been the subject of numerous analyses, extensive research focusing on their spatial aspect is rarely conducted. This article aims to identify the changes in the spatial diversification and polarisation of gminas (communes’) own incomes. Data from the Local Data Bank of Statistics Poland, the National Bank of Poland and the World Bank were used. The analysis covered the years 1995–2019. The study used the global spatial autocorrelation coefficient and the LISA method to identify the process of spatial dependence and to determine the degree of spatial polarisation. The Gini coefficient was applied to assess the level of diversity. The results of the analysis confirmed that an increasing spatial autocorrelation occurred in the studied period, leading to the spatial polarisation of the Polish gminas in terms of their own incomes. Gminas with a high level of own income formed spatial clusters within large urban agglomerations, in regions where natural resources were exploited, along the western border and the coastal belt. The findings show that the area of these clusters was expanding. On the other hand, low-own-income gminas were located in eastern and south-eastern Poland. The analysis has not confirmed that the dynamics of the gross domestic product or the level of inequality in gminas’ own income per capita had any effect on the changes in the spatial autocorrelation coefficient, nor, consequently, on the process of spatial polarisation.

Loves Me or Loves Me Not? Passing through the Forest of Love Symbols and Unveiling Its Social Nature

This article unveils how love, as a signified, can be constituted by the artificially constructed symbolic signs (“signifiers”) represented in our everyday life. Only when we regard love as a symbolic system and try to decipher its meanings can we understand how love is transmitted through sociomental patterns. This article attempts to provide examples from language, symbolic materials, the imprinted body, the code of temporality, and the spatial aspect to interpret the general elements that commonly form the forest of love symbols. Moreover, this article introduces cognitive sociology as a significant analytic approach to examining love. On the one hand, taking the “semantic square” proposed by Zerubavel, I articulate that when we want to understand the meanings of symbols, we usually have to embed them into their symbolic context. On the other hand, based on the distinction between marked and unmarked social categories proposed by Brekhus, I explain that more often than not, we can shed light on the marked love types even when we focus on love issues. Last, this article reminds us that the symbols of love are not fixed and constant but change according to the transformations of context.