The place probe: exploring a sense of place in real and virtual environments.

McCall, Rod; Benyon, David; Smyth, Michael; O'Neill, Shaleph; McCall, Roderick; Carroll, Fiona

Abstract

This paper describes the design, application, and refinement of a qualitative tool designed to study sense of place. The Place Probe incorporates a range of stimuli and techniques aimed at articulating a person's sense of place. It has been developed, used, and undergone three revisions. The paper describes the background to the choice of measures that were included in the Place Probe and describes its application in both a physical place and a virtual representation of that place. This enables a comparison of the experiences. An analysis of the results reveals a similarity of reported experience, however the extremes experienced in the physical place were less pronounced in the virtual representation. The Place Probe has been refined in light of the results of the empirical work and now incorporates both qualitative and quantitative data on the experience of place.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Online Publication Date: Dec 4, 2006
• Publication Date: 2006-12
• Deposit Date: Apr 30, 2008
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 30, 2008
• Print ISSN: 1054-7460
• Electronic ISSN: 1531-3263
• Publisher: MIT Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 15
• Issue: 6
• Pages: 668-687
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1162/pres.15.6.668
• Keywords: Sense of place; Sensory perception: Sensory stimuli; Qualitative approach; Computer program; Virtual environment; Test results; Quantitative enhancement
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/id/eprint/1852
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/pres.15.6.668
• Contract Date: Apr 30, 2008