Extending the wait-observation log with a Week 6 field for a concrete feature of a wait's physical environment, and checking whether it relates to Outcome/notes independently of Judged duration.
Week 5 sent the log at a screen. This week it goes back into a physical space — not a new instrument, the same one, with one new field for a concrete feature of the environment around an ordinary wait.
Before the session#
Read the Week 6 lecture first. It draws the distinction this session needs: a room doesn’t behave the way a progress bar does, so this week isn’t asking what a space implied about how much of the wait was left. It’s asking whether a concrete feature of the space relates to how you evaluated the wait (Outcome/notes) at all, separately from how long the wait felt (Judged duration).
Finding a genuine entry#
Over the week, log one ordinary physical waiting environment you can safely and accessibly observe — a lobby, a campus space, a transport stop, a shop or retail queue, or anywhere else you genuinely wait in person. Use the existing fields from Week 1, and add one new, clearly labelled field:
| Field | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Environment noticed | At least one specific, concrete feature of the physical space you actually noticed during the wait — seating, lighting, noise level, what was (or wasn’t) on the walls, temperature, how crowded it was. Not a general verdict like “nice” or “grim” — name the feature. |
Don’t rearrange or alter anything about the space to manufacture a more interesting entry, and don’t use a medical facility, emergency service, or other sensitive setting for this exercise. An ordinary, accessible wait you were already going to have is enough.
Comparing evaluation against judged duration#
Look at this entry’s Judged duration and its Outcome/notes side by side. Write a short, explicit answer to one question: did the space seem to affect how you felt about the wait, without any sign that it also changed how long the wait felt? A worked example (a model of the reasoning, not a real entry):
Context: waiting for a bus at an exposed stop with no shelter and nowhere to sit. Clock duration: nine minutes. Judged duration: “about ten — roughly accurate.” Environment noticed: no seating, no shelter from wind, constant traffic noise from the road. Outcome/notes: “irritable well before the bus arrived, more than the wait alone seemed to justify.” Comparison: Judged duration tracked clock duration closely — nothing here suggests the space changed how long the wait felt. Outcome/notes reads worse than the duration alone would predict. That gap is the kind of thing Pruyn and Smidts’s affect route would predict; a single entry can’t confirm the environment caused it, since tiredness or the specific errand could just as easily explain some of it.
Checking the distraction assumption, if you have a case for it#
If any of your existing log entries — from this week or an earlier one — contain an environmental feature that was intended or assumed to be distracting (something to watch, something to do, background music or a screen meant to occupy you), examine whether it appeared to change your evaluation of that wait. If it didn’t, discuss that; it’s the same gap Pruyn and Smidts found with their TV distractor. If your log doesn’t contain a case like this, say so directly. Don’t invent or engineer one just to have something to write about.
In the session#
Bring your entry and your comparison. We compare across the room: whose Outcome/notes moved independently of Judged duration, who found (or didn’t find) a case for the distraction check, and what’s left over that neither explanation accounts for.
What this can and can’t show#
One entry, however specific about the space, can’t show that an environment’s attractiveness caused a difference in how you evaluated a wait — it can only show whether your own experience lines up with, or departs from, a pattern found in a different real setting entirely. It also can’t tell you that distraction never works; at most it can flag one case where an assumed-helpful feature didn’t behave as expected, if your log happens to contain one. Don’t rearrange a real space or interfere with a real queue to get a better entry — log what you actually encountered.
Afterwards#
Keep the log running. Week 7 turns to who else was in that same space with you — what a queue’s own rules make visible, or leave invisible, about who is served next.
The spec
What you bring to the session. Written so a reader can tell whether it has been met without asking you.
- you have logged one ordinary physical waiting environment you can safely and accessibly observe (a lobby, a campus space, a transport stop, a shop or retail queue, or another physical waiting environment you genuinely experience), in the existing log format, adding a new "Environment noticed" field that names at least one specific, concrete feature of the space (seating, lighting, noise, what was on the walls, temperature, crowding, or similar) rather than a general impression like "nice" or "bad"
- you have compared this entry's Outcome/notes against its Judged duration and stated explicitly whether the space seemed to affect how you felt about the wait without any corresponding sign that it changed how long the wait felt
- your write-up names the specific Pruyn & Smidts (1998) finding this connects to (the affect/mood route for waiting-room attractiveness, separate from the cognitive route for objective time) and says whether your entry is consistent with it or departs from it, without treating your one entry as confirmation of the finding
- if your existing log entries contain an environmental feature that was intended or assumed to be distracting, examine whether it appeared to change your evaluation of that wait, and discuss what you find if it did not; if your log contains no suitable case, state that limitation directly rather than inventing or manufacturing one
- none of your notes reclassify this entry using Week 4's information or Week 5's interface-representation labels as if they were the same question as this week's
- you have not rearranged, altered, or otherwise interfered with a real waiting environment, and you have not visited or reported on any medical facility, emergency service, or other sensitive setting for this exercise; this stays observational, on ordinary, accessible waits you genuinely experience
Teaching team
- Idris Fenn — tutor