What question did this study set out to answer?

To explore how demographic identity affects urban navigation and subjective perceptions of space using IntimaCity.

June 3, 2026Open Access

IntimaCity: Quantifying Subjective Urban Intimacy through Affective Latency and Subjective Spatial Segmentation

Key Points

To explore how demographic identity affects urban navigation and subjective perceptions of space using IntimaCity.
Developed a mobile application to capture hesitation latency as a proxy for physiological responses.
Integrated ecological momentary assessment (EMA) with machine learning for spatial segmentation analysis.
Measured individual spatial focus influenced by demographic factors such as race and gender.
Found significant variations in hesitation latency based on demographic identity, indicating different cognitive friction levels.
Demonstrated that spatial categorization was influenced by individual identity, altering navigation experiences.
Identified that subjective GIS can provide insights into how people perceive and interact with urban environments.

Abstract

This study introduces IntimaCity, a mobile research instrument designed to operationalize Subjective GIS (SGIS). While traditional urban informatics treats the built environment as an objective geometry, this project hypothesizes that an individual’s demographic identity (race, gender, residential tenure) fundamentally alters their spatial focus (object, context, or global) and their cognitive friction during urban navigation. By using a custom-built mobile application, this study captures hesitation latency—the time change between visual capture and spatial categorization—as a software-based proxy for physiological arousal and stimuli. This methodology combines Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) with machine learning panoptic segmentation to map the invisible subjective layer of the city. LEGAL NOTICE: OSF licensing required selection, and GPL 3.0 was selected as the most adjacent to the intended AGPL 3.0 license. So, all code, software, and research materials associated with this registration are licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL) 3.0. Refer to the license.txt file included in this pre-registration for full terms.

IntimaCity: Quantifying Subjective Urban Intimacy through Affective Latency and Subjective Spatial Segmentation

Key Points

Abstract

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