Affective Responses Across Three Airport Areas: Associations With Sensory Processing Sensitivity

Airport environments are increasingly expected to incorporate sensory-friendly and inclusive design, yet scientific understanding remains limited regarding how passengers experience affect in real time across airport areas with different sensory characteristics. Using a quasi-experimental within-subject design, we exploratorily examined how brief 7-minute stays in three airport areas with differing sensory characteristics (i.e., quiet rooms, a seating area, and a food court) were associated with participants’ negative affect and anxiety. We also examined whether these affective experiences were related to sensory processing sensitivity. A brief stay in the quiet rooms was associated with reduced anxiety. The seating area was associated with a greater decrease in negative affect than the quiet rooms. At the bivariate level, higher sensory processing sensitivity was associated with a greater reduction in negative affect in the seating area. However, when covariates including two types of perceived environmental appraisal (comfort and activity) were statistically controlled, the interactions between area and sensitivity did not predict changes in either negative affect or anxiety. Overall, our findings highlight that real-time changes in negative affect and anxiety vary across airport areas. Although the evidence was modest, the results also suggest that patterns of affective experience in these areas may be associated with individual differences in sensory processing sensitivity.