2015, 121, 2, 548-567. © Perceptual & Motor Skills 2015 ISSN 0031-5125 DOI 10.2466/24.PMS.121c20x3 Perceptual & Motor Skills: Perception SEAT CHOICE AND DISTANCE JUDGMENT IN PUBLIC SPACES 1 OLAVO AVALONE NETO AND JUN MUNAKATA Chiba University Summary.—This research assessed whether public space users will adopt a least-effort approach and choose a less suitable seat nearby or seek the most suit- able seat, even if it is farther away from them when the decision is made. How distance assessment affects seat choice was investigated through an observational survey, which allowed the identification of behavioral patterns. Those behavioral patterns were then tested in a paired comparison experiment with 40 participants. The results showed that the effect of distance on seat choice is related to the dif- ference in distance between the options and that a sufficient difference can cause trade-offs between distance and seat properties. The necessary difference in dis- tance is conditioned by the activity and the seat properties. Public spaces ought to provide opportunities for encounters, discus- sions, deliberation, and socialization, while allowing for a diverse view- point of the world (Lefebvre, 1991; Németh, 2009). In recent decades, the production of public spaces, such as plazas and squares, has been gradu- ally transferred from the public to the private sector through government policies of exchanging floor area ratio for the provision of publicly accessi- ble spaces. When unregulated, these policies allow for the design of spac- es that will become neglected or underused and with no public function. Furthermore, it allows for designs that actively segregate the population or purposefully inhibit its usage (Németh, 2009). Alongside the changes in public space production, technological advances continue to change our social relations and our conceptions of place and location (Banerjee, 2001) that also contribute to lower public space attendance. To ensure the public function of a place, it is necessary to increase peo- ple's attendance in a democratic way and maximize interactions in such spaces, making them livelier. While an increase in the number of users will make a place livelier, an increase in the users' stay time will be more effec- tive in generating encounters (Gehl, 2011). Researchers have investigated the effects of several factors in people's attendance in public spaces, such as comfort (Walton, Dravitzki, & Donn, 2007; Lin, Tsai, Liao, & Huang, 2013), amount of sittable space and the presence of food stands (Whyte, 1980; Abdulkarim & Nasar, 2013), seat properties, placement and mate- rials (Whyte, 1980; Abe, Hayashida, Tetsuo, & Watanabe, 2009; Li, Chen, 1 Address correspondence to Olavo Avalone Neto, Bldg. 10, 3F, Room 303, Department of Architecture, Division of Architecture and Urban Planning, Faculty of Engineering, Chiba University, Nishi Chiba Campus, Chiba City, Chiba Prefecture, 263-8522, Japan or e-mail (avalone@gmail.com).