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Reviving natural ventilation (NV) for urban sustainability presents challenges for indoor acoustic comfort. Active control and interference-based noise mitigation strategies, such as the use of loudspeakers, offer potential solutions to achieve acoustic comfort while maintaining NV. However, these approaches are not commonly integrated or evaluated from a perceptual standpoint. This study examines the perceptual and objective aspects of an active-noise-control (ANC)-based "anti-noise" window (ANW) and its integration with informational masking (IM) in a model bedroom. Forty participants assessed the ANW in a three-way interaction involving noise types (traffic, train, and aircraft), maskers (bird, water), and ANC (on, off). The evaluation focused on perceived annoyance (PAY; ISO/TS 15666), perceived affective quality (ISO/TS 12913-2), loudness (PLN), and included an open-ended qualitative assessment. Despite minimal objective reduction in decibel-based indicators and a slight increase in psychoacoustic sharpness, the ANW alone demonstrated significant reductions in PAY and PLN, as well as an improvement in ISO pleasantness across all noise types. The addition of maskers generally enhanced overall acoustic comfort, although water masking led to increased PLN. Furthermore, the combination of ANC with maskers showed interaction effects, with both maskers significantly reducing PAY compared to ANC alone., Comment: Accepted manuscript submitted to Sustainable Cities and Society

Faces are pivotal social stimuli that convey a tremendous amount of information and trigger numerous cogni-tive processes and consequent behaviors. Among the numerous factors that mediate face perception, we focused our attention on two particular phenomena and their interaction: the Baby Schema effect (BSE) and the Mere Exposure effect (MEE). Accordingly to the BSE, babies’ features are considered “cuter” than adults’ features and motivate people towards protection and caregiving, while the MEE states that familiarity can increase the like-ability of various stimuli, including faces. To investigate how those two factors interact, we carried out a follow-up study of the work of Venturoso et al. (2019) on a Singaporean sample. Singapore is a multicultural city-state where different ethnicities live alongside each other. Participants (ethnic Chinese and Indian) were shown faces of female adults and babies of different ethnic groups (Caucasian, Indian, Chinese and Arabic). Implicit responses were recorded using pupillometry measures, while explicit attitudes were assessed using a questionnaire. Our results confirm the presence of the BSE in both the explicit and implicit measures; specifically, baby faces elicited greater pupillary variations and were rated as more attractive than adult faces. An interaction effect between age and ethnicity was also observed. On the other hand, differences in pupil diameters and pleasantness scores were found between the ethnic groups on adult faces. The above-mentioned differences did not depend on whether stimuli belonged to the ethnic in-group or out-group of the participants, suggesting that exposure to individu-als of different ethnicities reduces in-group favoritism. Further investigation is needed to better understand the complex interaction between BSE and MEE in our increasingly multifaceted reality Ministry of Education (MOE) Nanyang Technological University Published version This research was supported by the NAP Start-up Grant M4081597 (G.E.) from Nanyang Technological University Singapore, the Singapore Ministry of Education ACR Tier-1 Grant (G.E., P.S.), Singapore Ministry of Education ACR Tier1 (G.E.), Singapore Ministry of Education Social Science Research Thematic Grant (MOE2016-SSRTG-017, P.S.). The founder agencies had no role in the conceptualization, design, data collection, analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

We conceptualise the meaning of working for Singaporean university graduates aligned to contemporary economic and social policy that anticipates a changing future of work and society. Using data from 254 Singapore undergraduates, we report an early effort to develop self report scales measuring more contemporary (1) market-oriented/happenstance attitude to employment, and (2) intrinsic, non-economic attitudes to working, that are contrasted with more traditional (3) qualification/expertise-based attitudes to employment. Our new concepts/measures are independent of career attitudes, with the first two measures relating to protean/boundaryless career attitudes and employability and the last measure relates more to low organizational mobility preference. We discuss our research in context of ongoing employment policy transformations and social change, implications for graduate employability, and ongoing research directions. Workforce Development Agency (WDA) Published version

Soundscape augmentation, which involves the addition of sounds known as “maskers” to a given soundscape, is a human-centric urban noise mitigation measure aimed at improving the overall soundscape quality. However, the choice of maskers is often predicated on laborious processes and is inflexible to the time-varying nature of real-world soundscapes. Owing to the perceptual uniqueness of each soundscape and the inherent subjectiveness of human perception, we propose a probabilistic perceptual attribute predictor (PPAP) that predicts parameters of random distributions as outputs instead of a single deterministic value. Using the PPAP, we developed a novel automatic masker selection system (AMSS), which selects optimal masker candidates based on the predicted distribution of the ISO 12913-3 Pleasantness score for a given soundscape. Via a large-scale listening test with 300 participants, we collected 12600 subjective responses, each to a unique augmented soundscape, to train the PPAP models in a 5-fold cross-validation scheme. Using a convolutional recurrent neural network backbone and experimenting with several variants of the attention mechanism for the PPAP, we evaluated the proposed system on a blind test set with 48 unseen augmented soundscapes to assess the effectiveness of the probabilistic output scheme over traditional deterministic systems. Ministry of National Development (MND) National Research Foundation (NRF) Submitted/Accepted version This research is supported by the Singapore Ministry of National Development and the National Research Foundation, Prime Minister’s Office under the Cities of Tomorrow Research Programme (Award No. COT-V4-2020-1), and the Google Cloud Research Credits Program (GCP205231017).

As applied to dynamic monitoring situations, the prevailing approach to situation awareness (SA) assumes that the relevant areas of interest (AOI) be perceived before that information can be processed further to effect decision making and thereafter action. It is not entirely clear whether this is the case. This study seeks to investigate the monitoring of dynamic objects through matching eye fixations with the relevant AOIs in boundary crossing scenarios. By this definition, a match is where a fixation is registered on the AOI. While many factors may affect monitoring characteristics, traffic simulations were designed in this study to explore two factors namely: the number of inbound/outbound traffic transfer and the number of entry and/or exit points in a radar monitoring sector. These two factors were graded into 5 levels of difficulty ranging from low to high traffic flow numbers. Combined permutation in terms of levels of difficulty of these two factors yielded a total of thirty scenarios. Through this, results showed that changes in the traffic flow numbers on transfer resulted in greater variations having match limits ranging from 29%-100%, as compared to the number of sector entry/exit points of range limit from 80%-100%. Subsequent analysis is able to determine the type and combination of traffic scenarios where imperfect matching is likely to occur. Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) Nanyang Technological University Published version This research is supported by the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University, Singapore under their collaboration in the Air Traffic Management Research Institute.

Faced with a highly dynamic future of work, employees and pre-workforce students increasingly need different learning mindsets for both employment and employability in an era of protean careers. Using data from two samples of Singaporean undergraduates, we develop self-report measures of Continuous Learning for Upgrading and Employability (CLUE) and Learning as a Means for Employment (LAME). We find that CLUE correlates with protean/boundaryless career attitudes, lifelong learning, perceived employability, career-focused work orientation, and a growth implicit theory of working, while LAME correlates with low-organizational mobility preference, job-focused work orientation and a destiny implicit theory of working. Management research and practice implications of this research are discussed in view of increasing policy-level concerns with (and overlaps between) traditional boundaries of education and employment. Workforce Development Agency (WDA) Published version

Traditional decibel-based measures in predicting annoyance from construction activities are limited to reflect high acoustic variability of construction machinery noises. Hence, a multidimensional approach based on perceptual attributes and psychoacoustic parameters is proposed. In-situ audio-visual recordings of 16 construction machinery in operation were evaluated subjectively on both perceived annoyance and a 12-item semantic differential perceptual attribute scale. The 16 machinery noises formed three clusters based on four perceptual components (Incisiveness, Strength, Intermittency, and Periodicity) derived via principal component analysis of the perceptual attributes. Notably, individual perceptual components strongly correlate with mean values of psychoacoustic parameters (loudness, sharpness, roughness, and fluctuation strength) over time, which we use to develop an annoyance model for construction noise. Both loudness and fluctuation strength were critical parameters to discriminate between clusters. The model can be used to automatically categorize construction noises by cluster and manage it based on known cluster characteristics. Ministry of National Development (MND) National Research Foundation (NRF) Submitted/Accepted version This work was suported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT) (NRF-2022R1C1C1008066 and NRF-2021R1A2C1095819). This research was also supported by the National Research Foundation, Singapore, and Ministry of National Development, Singapore under its Cities of Tomorrow R&D Program (CoT Award: COT-V4-2020-1).

Trustworthiness is a core concept that drives individuals’ interaction with others, as well with objects and digital interfaces. The perceived trustworthiness of strangers from the evaluation of their faces has been widely studies in social psychology, however, little is known about the possibility of transferring trustworthiness from human faces to other individuals, objects or interfaces. In this study, we explore how the perceived trustworthiness of automated teller machines (ATMs) is influenced by the presence of faces on the machines, and how the trustworthiness of the faces themselves is transferred to the machine. In our study, participants (N = 57) rated the trustworthiness of ATMs on which faces of different age, gender, and ethnicity are placed. Subsequently, the trustworthiness of the ATMs is compared to the trustworthiness ratings of faces presented on their own. Results of our works support the idea that faces’ trustworthiness can be transferred to objects on which faces are presented. Moreover, the trustworthiness of ATMs seems to be influenced by the age of presented faces, with ATMs on which children faces are presented are trusted more than the same machines when adults’ or elders’ faces are presented, but not by the ethnicity (Asian or Caucasian) or gender (male or female) of presented faces.

Social networking sites have determined radical changes in human life, demanding investigations on online socialization mechanisms. The knowledge acquired on in-person sociability could guide researchers to consider both environmental and genetic features as candidates of online socialization. Here, we explored the impact of the quality of adult attachment and the genetic properties of the Serotonin Transporter Gene (5-HTTLPR) on Instagram social behavior. Experiences in Close Relationships-Revised questionnaire was adopted to assess 57 Instagram users’ attachment pattern in close relationships with partners. Genotypes from the 5-HTTLPR/rs25531 region were extracted from the users’ buccal mucosa and analyzed. Users’ Instagram social behavior was examined from four indexes: number of posts, number of followed users (“followings”) and number of followers, and the Social Desirability Index calculated from the followers to followings ratio. Although no interaction between rs25531 and ECR-R dimensions was found, an association between avoidance in close relationships and Instagram number of followings emerged. Post hoc analyses revealed adult avoidance from the partner predicts the Instagram number of followings with good evidence. Moreover, users reporting high avoidance levels displayed fewer followings than users who reported low levels of avoidance. This research provides a window into the psychobiological understanding of online socialization on Instagram. Ministry of Education (MOE) Nanyang Technological University Published version This research was supported by grants from the NAP SUG (M4081597, 2015-2021) and the Singapore Ministry of Education ACR Tier 1 (RG149/16 and RT10/19) to G.E.

Despite a plethora of societal problems that are best solved by citizen participation, the problem of inaction exists whereby members of society fail to mobilize themselves to respond to pressing social issues. This research examines the personality and motivation predictors of volunteering to understand and solve the problem of inaction. Using the Meta-Theoretic Model of Motivation and Personality (3M Model; Mowen, 2000) as the theoretical framework, we developed a conceptual hierarchical model of personality that consists of personality traits and motives previously found to predict volunteerism. In three studies, we tested this model empirically in two different samples of youths (age 18 to 25) in Singapore and in the United States. Results revealed the key personality traits and motives, and their patterns of interaction, that predict youth volunteering in both samples. Cross-cultural differences in personality predictors also emerged. Theoretically, these findings support the development of an overarching theory to explain the interplay of traits and motives in predicting a specific behavior. Practically, they offer insights into key personality predictors of youth volunteering and possible culture-specific influences. As a contribution to solving the problem of inaction, this research offers practical recommendations for improving volunteer management, and for developing a giving culture in our societies. Doctor of Philosophy

I brought together two strands of literature, one investigating the moderate but persistent underachievement of girls in mathematics in most countries, and the other examining the role of self-efficacy and other self-beliefs in predicting behaviour and achievement. I implemented detailed decompositions of the gender mathematics gap, both at the mean and for low and high performing students, for a large and diverse group of countries. I found considerable heterogeneity and different cross-country patterns in decomposition components and the contribution of self-beliefs. In OECD-Europe and more affluent East Asian countries, most or all the gap is explained by gender differences in self-efficacy; on the other hand, in Latin America and the Middle East, most of the gap remains unexplained. I also investigated the relationship between the gender mathematics gap-gender equity relationship across countries and found that a clearly negative association between the size of the gap and gender equality in a cross-country regression can be established after controlling for cross-country heterogeneity in gender differences in mathematics self-beliefs, which correlate with gender equality. Accepted version