Participatory sensing systems are increasingly used to support environmental awareness by enabling individuals to collect and access environmental data. However, in many projects, citizen-generated data are presented in static forms that are weakly connected to lived experience and data-collection contexts. This research introduces Augmented Reality (AR) into the context of participatory sensing to explore new ways of interacting with data and engaging with the environment. We present CEDAR, a sensor-based AR application that incorporates a character growth mechanism and three modes of data interaction: environmental data visualisation, particle-removal gameplay, and creative data making. The project progressed through four Research through Design (RtD) stages: the development of the CEDAR toolkit, a participatory sensing workshop, the design and iterative refinement of the CEDAR application, and an evaluation phase. The research results show that CEDAR supports meaningful data exchange by developing these mechanisms. Through this process, participants perceived previously invisible environmental conditions, developed deeper understandings, reinterpreted data as responsive living objects, and formed dynamic, personalized dialogues with their surrounding environment. Finally, we further discuss the role of AR in environmental engagement and offer insights for the design of future participatory environmental data sensing practices.
Fashion is an important aspect of life, and impacts people's sense of belonging, well-being, self-esteem, behaviour, cognition, and emotions. However, there is a lack of understanding of how current "youthful" fashion impacts the well-being of middle-aged female consumers. This study examined the mediating role of ageing anxiety, appearance anxiety, and the moderating effects of an interest in fashion, as well as fashion spending power and age on the relationship between satisfaction with fashion clothing choices and well-being. Survey responses were collected from 252 middle-aged women residing in the United Kingdom (UK). The results showed that satisfaction with fashion clothing choices was a significant predictor of well-being, and this relationship was partly mediated by social avoidance behaviour. The model explained 19% of the variance in middle-aged women's well-being. The content analysis of open-ended responses asking about challenges middle-aged women face when shopping for clothes revealed that size, fit, and style were the main areas of concern. This cohort, overall, felt overlooked by designers, manufacturers, and retailers. Pushing middle-aged women from the market or hoping they will just fit into the "young" or "mature" category can lead them to disengage socially and from mainstream fashion brands. Therefore, it is important for the industry to reconsider its current provision and cater to the needs of this important consumer group.
This paper examines how Spotify Wrapped is perceived and understood by Brazilian users, exploring the algorithmic imaginaries (Bucher, 2017). that surround its appropriation in everyday life and how the datafication and the dashboarding of music consumption are incorporated into performances of taste (Airoldi, 2021; Prey, 2018). Focusing on Wrapped as an annual 'algorithmic event' (Annabell & Rasmussen, 2024) we contextualise it as part of ongoing discussions on the platformisation of music and the algorithmic mediation of identity, as well as debates about digital memory and media events. Based on a social network analysis of posts collected from Twitter/X and a thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with 38 Spotify users, we argue that in Brazil the 'eventness' of Spotify Wrapped is distributed, clustered but sparsely connected, and marked by fleeting, fluid and ephemeral feelings of shared experience and recognition rather than by enduring communities. Foregrounding ordinary acts of constrained agency (Siles, et al., 2022), our findings also indicate that Brazilian users playfully and skilfully incorporate the perceived logics of datafied consumption and algorithmic mediation to produce desirable Wrapped results - whilst also hoping that 'the algorithm' would be able to understand listening contexts and only capture those sessions that are 'Wrapped-worthy'. We conclude by highlighting the continuities and specificities of the phenomenon in relation to existing theorisations of everyday data cultures (Burgess et al., 2022). In doing so, we contribute to the growing body of literature on music streaming studies, platform studies, and critical algorithm studies.
David Bordwelltirelesslychampioned interdisciplinary approaches to the cognitive study of cinema, which inspired generations of film and media scholars. While his impact on cognitive psychologists is indelible, we are at an inflection point in the field of film psychology. Many psychological researchers now use fiction film as experimental material because it arguably mimics a naturalistic context to study attention, perception, and cognition. It is time to follow Bordwell's lead and make the same interdisciplinary argument to scholars within the fields of media psychology, cognitive science, and neuroscience who use film as a naturalistic stimulus in their studies. Their programs of research will be incomplete if uninformed by theories and scholarship from the perspective of film studies because that scholarship helps characterize the practices of filmmaking, which affect how a film is cognitively and affectively experienced. To make our argument, we reflect upon Bordwell's influence on our own programs of research.
There is a widespread perception in contemporary society that women love fashion and shopping and are very conscious about how others perceive them. This paper reports on a study which analyzed the clothing choices of ten mothers, who ranged in age from the mid-twenties to mid-sixties. Fashion, in particular fast fashion, is often regarded as being the dominant influence in a woman's choice of clothing, however this study revealed a very different picture, where social identity, practicality and their own individual style played an important role. Implicit and explicit influences on their clothing choices were analyzed and their clothing needs were discussed with reference to both Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and Max-Neef's Universal Human Needs. The paper concludes that further research on a more "needs based" analysis of clothing behavior is required, as this area is under-researched.
