## 2 Materials and Methods  
### Participants and Material  
The study consists of two samples (_Sample One_ and _Sample Two_), each with six participants, conducted consecutively in the city of Stockholm. _Sample One_ performed one sorting round and addressed loneliness only verbally through a commentary session. _Sample Two_ added a second sorting round directly addressing loneliness in order to record responses from participants gained by their \"doing\" (sorting/non-verbal) and \"saying\" (commentary/verbal) with specific instructions to consider links between loneliness and public space. The data was collected with the consent of the participants, who were informed that full protection of their identity was provided and that no personal information would be disclosed in any form of scientific or other articles. * _Sample One_: Adults aged 24-35, three women and three men, all of which had lived in the Stockholm city area for more than four years, two born and raised in Stockholm, all had lived abroad for study or work purposes. * _Sample Two_: Elderly aged 67-74, all female retirees, all of which had lived in Farsta, a suburb of Stockholm, for more than four years, all were Swedish citizens. The principle criteria for recruiting the participants is that they volunteered to take part in the MST as they became interested in communicating on the study subject which they learned from the researchers. The age cohorts of the samples reflect the high-risk age groups of loneliness mentioned in previous section. The residence period takes account of the likelihood of the participants knowing the actual public places represented through the photographs since familiarity of the places in the photographs can be an influential factor of people's conception of places [97]. The background of an international living experience was viewed as being relevant for the group aged 24-35, as transitions and changes of the physical environment and social life can increase vulnerability to loneliness within this age group in particular [98]. The current study does not involve loneliness scale measurements as a criterion for recruiting participants. This was to reduce the apprehension of the subjects, which might have discouraged them from participating at the early stage of the study due to the stigma and possible bias around the concept of loneliness. Further, for urban planning and design to address loneliness, it is moreuseful to consider populations who are vulnerable to loneliness rather than only targeting already self-reported lonely people. According to [PERSON], the best way to understand loneliness is to deepen the understanding of where and what may go wrong that leads to the onset of loneliness [99]. The responses from participants who did not pre-identify themselves as lonely are therefore relevant and this can be compared to the data from self-reported lonely people at a later stage (this will be done as part of the doctoral research underway, of which this study is one part). Using color photographs to simulate the real environment has been validated in studies of landscape and architecture [39; 97; 100; 101]. For this study, 20 color photographs of public space (excluding virtual public space) in Stockholm were chosen by the researchers through internet open source materials (e.g., Google, Bing) in _Sample One_ (Figure A1 in Appendix A), whereas in _Sample Two_ the 20 public spaces (Figure A2 in Appendix A) were first collectively nominated by a small group of the elderly representatives at a workshop and then the researchers utilized the photographs in the same manner as for _Sample One_. The weather appearing in all photographs is consistent. A variety of actions were captured in the photographs which reflect the three facets of place: physical, actions, and cognitive [102]. For the physical attributes, the chosen photographs reflect elements such as open, enclosed, old built, new built, water, green, hard surface, soft surface, and specific objects.