# An Experimental Study on the Influence of Soundscapes on People's Behaviour in an Open Public Space
## 3 Results
### Effect of Music on Duration of Stay
#### 3.2.1 Analysis of Covariant Attributes on Duration of Stay  
The three attributes described in Section 2.3 (i.e., Activity, Group, and Posture) were considered to be potential covariant factors of influence on the duration of stay. Thus, three corresponding variables were defined. Activity was defined as a categorical variable with five levels: Chatting, Eating-Drinking, Loitering, Smoking, and Talking on the phone. Group was defined as a dichotomous variable: No (Alone) or Yes (Two or more people). Posture was defined as a dichotomous variable: Standing or Sitting.  
Since the distribution of duration of stay scores was positively skewed, a log transform (natural logarithm) was performed to normalise the data, and this resulted in an approximately normal distribution of scores. Thus, from now on, the Duration of stay variable will refer to the log-transformed dataset.  
A one-way Welch ANOVA was carried out to investigate whether the different activities carried out affected people's mean duration of stay. Homogeneity of variances was violated, as assessed by [PERSON]'s Test of Homogeneity of Variance (\(p\) = 0.018). Duration of stay score was statistically significantly different between different activities groups, Welch's \(F(4,\) 143.522) = 14.821, \(p\) = 0.001, partial \(\eta^{2}\) = 0.030. However, Games-Howell post hoc analysis revealed that only the duration of Talking on the phone events (M = 4.66, SD = 1.06) had a statistically significant difference with respect to Smoking events (M = 5.26, SD = 0.96), \(p\) = 0.04, and Eating/Drinking events (M = 5.38, SD = 1.14), \(p\) = 0.04. It seems likely to assert that the occurrence of Talking on the phone events implies a shorter mean duration of stay than the one detectable during the other four activities. A second critical inspection of the recordings revealed that in most cases, the duration of the Talking on the phones event was mainly related to the actual duration of the call (i.e., people would stay in the observation area only for the time necessary for the call, being uninterested in the music). No significant difference was observed between the duration of stay recorded during Chatting, Eating/Drinking, Loitering, and Smoking events, so no other relative effect could be stated according to the Activities variable.  
Furthermore, a one-way Welch ANOVA was carried out to investigate whether the being alone or in group could affect people's mean duration of stay. Homogeneity of variances was not violated in this case, as assessed by [PERSON]'s Test of Homogeneity of Variance (\(p\) = 0.050), but the difference between the two levels of the Group variable was not statistically significant, [PERSON]'s \(F(1,\) 577.373) = 0.070, \(p\) = 0.791. Eventually, a one-way Welch ANOVA was carried out for the Posture variable, to investigate whether standing or sitting could affect people's mean duration of stay. Homogeneity of variances was violated, as assessed by [PERSON]'s Test of Homogeneity of Variance (\(p\) = 0.004). The difference between the two levels of the Posture variable was statistically significant, [PERSON]'s \(F(1,\) 469.457) = 136.946, \(p\) < 0.001, partial \(\eta^{2}\) = 0.183.  
Thus, the Activity and Group variables were excluded from further analysis, as their influence on the duration of stay values was not significant. Only the effects of Posture and Stimulus on the Duration of stay variable will be explored in the following section.