## 4 Discussion
### Contribution to Understanding the Potential of Public Space in Mitigating Loneliness
One of the 24-35 year old adult participants (_Sample One_) commented on the picture of a local park (picture S, which features a fountain, trees, benches, and a circular street) that they would go to the place shown in the picture for lunch or to hang out if they did not know that place was \"the only place people don't say hello to each other\". This implies that the individual experience in terms of one's perceived social dynamics and invisible local culture has a strong influence on people's conceptualization of places. Similarly, one elderly participant (_Sample One_) commented on picture C, a local cafe, that the place looked nice and she may even go there if she felt lonely without the knowledge of what kind of crowd may hang out there. She emphasized that she would never go to that cafe if she knew that the regulars of that place hold an opposing political view to her own. Hence knowing the place may be more important than the appearance of the place in influencing an individual's conception of a place and the decision of whether to go there and what to do there. When loneliness was directly addressed as a focus in the conception process during sorting in _Sample Two_, the central concern for the groupings of public space was the consideration of whether it is was better to go there alone, or together with someone else. Compared with _Sample One_, loneliness was only addressed in the verbal part in _Sample Two_, not in the non-verbal part (sorting). _Sample Two_ also provided new inputs indicating a distinction between the self and perceived self-situation in relation to the environment. \"Going alone\" may imply different meanings: one indicates a sense of safety; the other means going alone to those places where you at least would not feel lonelier. Nevertheless, the assumptions the participants hold during their cognitive responses during sorting is that they were physically alone or emotionally felt alone if they are in situations of feeling lonely. Their perceived feeling of comfortableness influences their decisions on which places they can go to seek refuge or social interactions. Out of [PERSON] and [PERSON]'s tips of ways to find social connections against loneliness, \"making the lonely person feel safe\" is one of their most genuine pieces of advice because that feeling can never be logically justified and an unsafe feeling is rooted in feelings of rejection [53]. Further, besides more common points shared by the young adults in _Sample One_ and the elderly of _Sample Two_ in their responses to a \"place to go in situations of feeling lonely\", there was a slight divergence between the two groups. This demonstrated that social factors might have a stronger influence on what people think they can do and where to go when they feel lonely. For example, a \"designated place for [the] elderly\" was addressed by the elderly, and \"bars and clubs\" relating to alcohol consumption was marked by the young adults' sample. The results of the study also demonstrated differences in personality and preferences between and within the two sample groups. Some young adults prefer to go to noisy places to fight loneliness, while others found comfort by sitting in a cafe to do people watching. Members from the elderly sample on the other hand showed preference for going to the local library or gym when feeling lonely. Finally, there are a few limitations of the study: (1) The current MST samples are relatively small, though the non-metric statistic nature of the analysis made the generation of useful findings possible; (2) the notion of 'virtual public space' has not been incorporated into the sorting procedure of the MST. This was discussed in the commentary session but was not included in the sorting itself; (3) 'public transportation as public spaces' was considered to be important but disliked by the participants. This shows the emergence of issues that need further exploration within the concept of public space.